


When the Rain Rises

by Cucuxumusu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventures, Alternate Universe, Angst and Fluff, Arrogant Kid, Destiny, Drama, Fantasy Supernatural, Fighting the status quo, Hate at First Sight, Historicals references, Humor, M/M, Medieval, Mythology - Freeform, Plot Twists, Prophecies, Punishment, Scars, Smut, Snow, Social Classes Discrimination, Stubborn Law, Zoro is secretly having fun, and lots of rain, god AU, lots of snow, love fights, tragic past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2018-12-05 04:23:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 56,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11570244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cucuxumusu/pseuds/Cucuxumusu
Summary: The rain is pouring in the world. The rain had been pouring for days, for years, for decades. It has been raining so much that Law has never seen the sun in his whole life. The crops are dying, illness are increasing and if the rain isn't stopped soon humanity might die. So the elders send Law in a suicidal mission to reach the other world, talk with the gods and solve the problem.Will Law be able to do it? Do the gods really exist? Will be be able to survive the trip and the travelling to another world? And more importantly, will the gods listen to him?





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> So here I am again with a new long fic. Hope you all like it cos it has taken me a few weeks to came up with a good plot. In any case I wanna dedicate this fic to my lovely beta that I keep torturing but that still stays by my side and help me with this things no matter how bussy she is, and also to K. Frost and Leena who give me a lot of motivation to keep writing and who had managed (somehow) to print a fanbook of Ignis Draco. Love you all.
> 
> As allways the characters don't belong to me but to Echiroo Oda that is torturing us with the lack of Kidd and Law in the manga. Also any resemblance with real people or real stories is mere coincidence, and children please, don't do what the characters do, it's dangerous. In any case, I hope you all like it.

 

Law took another small step dodging one of the will-o'-wispthat glowed with a dim light in the dark night. His boots felt heavy, soaked and dirtied with the mud and gray water of the swamp, but still, Law strode forward through the dark place, going deeper and deeper into the cold dark forest. North, always northward, to where the world ended and a new land of miracles and magic began.

Towards his only salvation.

The young man with silver eyes stopped for a moment on top of one of the black branches of a fallen tree, trying to catch his breath. The cold and toxic air of this land made it difficult to breathe and advance, but Law simply couldn't surrender. This swamp was one of the boundaries of the world, the border of the unknown, a cursed forest where no one dared to enter and where everything seemed to be designed to destroy him. Inside it nothing green could grow, animals could not survive without food, and any human who stayed in this place longer than needed would end up crazy. Not even the black, viscous water at Law's feet could be considered drinkable, so survival -without food, without water- was pretty tough.

His main problem was indeed the food, with nothing alive in the place Law couldn't hunt, couldn't regain strength to continue his way. The portions of food were getting smaller and smaller each passing day and the little water he could catch from the strange rain wasn't enough to quench his thirst.

To make things worse, Law was tired, but falling asleep in this place was a death sentence. Gangrene or the loss of a limb through a simple distraction and a fall into the water could already be his end. Not that it was a huge deal, Law had learned years ago to sleep with one open eye, but the lack of sleep paired with the hunger, and his exhaustion after days traveling was starting to become a problem.

The swamp was a place to go to die and where intelligent people would not dare enter under normal circumstances and even less spend the amount of time Law was wasting there. But this wasn't a normal situation, and Law had never been like the rest.

Looking up, the dark-haired man gazed at the gray sky above his head, at that strange tumult of clouds that had become something constant in the world since a few decades ago. From the first day they had appeared over their heads, the dark ominous clouds had begun to pour rain on the world and Law's people. Because of that the young man had never seen the sun in his whole life. The greatest problem has been the lack of light. The sky had quickly become a curse, and was, of course, the reason of Law's entry into the swamp.

Law sighed. There was no need to remember what had happened, now there was no other option but to move forward and survive another day. Dodging another lost soul, another will-o'-wisp, those strange lights that lit his way at night, Law kept walking, unwilling to stop for just a moment.

He had to reach his destination soon or he will follow the same fate as those lights around him.

Jumping to the next fallen trunk and then to the next, Law tried to avoid the gray water of the swamp which would melt his leather boots in seconds. His whole body felt numb from the weeks of travel, the wet clothes, and the lack of a good meal, but his anger and hatred kept him going.

This was a suicide mission.

The elders had known it, his friends had known it, even Law. _But it had been a desperate situation_. Law still saw the smiles on their faces, the satisfaction in their eyes when finding the perfect excuse to get rid of him, and getting the possibility to solve the strange phenomenon at the same time.

Law's mission had sounded even simple at the time: Law had to stop the eternal rain, the one flooding the crops, the one that caused new diseases, the one that was killing his people. And to do this he had to go through the swamp, the legendary gate of Heimdal, and reach a place where no man had been able to enter.

It was simply absurd. There was no evidence that the legends were true, Law could go deeper and deeper into the swamp, until he ran out of food, until he couldn't go further, and even that wouldn't solve the problem of the rain. This was a suicidal mission, and Law was very sure about his fate and what was going to happen.

Releasing another branch and advancing even deeper into the forest pursuing his own death, Law almost stumbled and fell into the murky water that would easily end his life. Cursing and finally getting a hold in another branch managing to dodge the water, Law knelt on the dark wood forcing himself to calm down. He couldn't lose his temper in a place like this! Not in a situation where a bad decision would end his life as many wanted. He had to concentrate!

That's when he saw it.

With his mind focused thanks to the adrenaline of the accident, with his senses more sensitive than ever. _A little glow_. Unlike the fatuous lights or the dull sunlight between the clouds, something that illuminated the leather straps that protected his hands from the branches with a purple and supernatural hue.

Rising quickly from his position, Law ran among the trees and pools of grey water, stumbling over the branches in his eagerness to reach the place, pursuing a light that couldn't possibly exist, that Law hadn't believe that would be there.

Law didn't even notice when the rain stopped falling on him for the first time in his life, he didn't even notice when the ground became smooth, steady, without treacherous holes, puddles or hidden branches, just green and shiny grass crowned with small white flowers that invited to roll over.

No, Law only saw the blue stones. A perfect carved stone arc with thousands of filigrees and knots that crossed and twisted one over another, creating an impossible design. An arc whose cracks emanated the bright light of a thousand stars.

 _Heimdal_. The door of the end of the world. The place where everything ends.

Law, standing in front of it, couldn't help but look beyond the clearing where the rain didn't fall and the black trees didn't grow, just behind the gate. But there was nothing there. As if everything disappeared, as if the world simply ceased to exist. Not even a precipice, not a mist, simply nothing.

He had done it. Law had discovered the legend.

The young man advanced then to the threshold of the door, where everything began and ended, to the point that connected the human world and the other world. But he doubted. Legends said that humans couldn't go beyond. Legends warned about the consequences of talking to the other beings. Crossing to the other side could mean his death, indeed, even worse, the legend could be a lie too and Law could disappear into nothingness on the other side.

But this was a desperate situation. There was no choice. There was no turning back. Law would not survive the return journey with his remaining supplies, and even if he did, he would not be able to return to the village if he hadn't accomplished his mission.

He could only move forward.

Stopping in front of the door, a single step away of crossing to the unknown, Law stupidly thought of his own appearance. His clothes were soaked and worn after the trip, his trousers and arms were covered with the black mud from the swamp and the knives and swords he wore had even rusted with the moisture. He might also look a bit sick. With the intense exercise and little rations, Law had even lost weight and now his clothes seemed to be too big, to sad. His appearance was not imposing, it was neither surprising nor worthy of that place.

But Law had never been worthy. That had been clear from the day he had been born. They had repeated it to him thousands of times throughout his live, so perhaps it was better this way, without tricks, without deception, only Law.

Taking one last breath of putrid air of his world, Law advanced the last step and walked through the door that seemed to vibrate and illuminate with the light of a thousand suns around him.

Forward. Towards the unknown. Towards the world of the gods.

 


	2. Powerful, big, and arrogant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here I am again, able to post another chapter before moving again. Thanks a lot guys for the support and reviews, you are awesome, I know the fandom is going throught dificulties (we all miss Kidd and Law in the manga) but I'm happy to see people are still following this.

_"Before entering a place, look for its exit."_

_-Viking Proverb_

Law quickly found himself lying down on the ground on a blanket of pure fluffy white snow. The sun was clearly rising in the pale sky announcing a new day, but still, the thick black clouds were covering the beauty of the dawn and plunging the world into a grey darkness.

Sitting on the strange cold white floor, Law blinked and looked around at the new, forbidden world where he had managed to get into and where he needed to find help.

It wasn't what he had expected.

The snow covered everything, white and bright, blowing among the huge mountains and cliffs of transparent ice that were in front of him and that seemed about to break over Law's head. The scenery was imposing. Wild and virgin nature. Even strange whimsical lights were illuminating the sky with purple and green shades under the dark looming clouds. However there was an element that seemed to be missing in this new world as it had been missing in the world Law had left behind.

Life.

There was no one, there was nothing. No animals, no plants, not even smoke rising from a distant chimney among the huge cliffs. Just nothing.

Law got up from the ground and looked back, waiting for _just_ something more. The stone arch of Heimil's door where he had come from was still there. Tall and huge, the only colourless element in the foreign landscape of pure white and blues, but something had changed in it, it no longer shone, it no longer seemed to ooze magic or wait for Law to cross it. Now it just seemed dead. Law could even see through its arch the huge expanse of snow that stretched as far as the eye could see.

The silent cliffs in front. The white nothingness behind.

Had the door...confused his destiny? Was he in another world than the one he intended to reach? _Was he lost?_ What was he going to do now? Law didn't even have food to endure another day, and at first sight this place didn't seem different from the swamp, where was he supposed to hunt here? And what had happened to the damn door?

"You shouldn't be here." a deep, powerful voice whispered behind him.

Law's instinct quickly turned on alert. His whole body seemed to react, the hair on the back of his neck bristled, his hand clenched the short rusty sword on his hip, and he unconsciously prepare to face the power that seemed to emanate from just the voice of the stranger.

 _A stranger that seconds ago had not been there_.

Law turned slowly to face a colossus of a man. Unable to avoid it, he stepped back, trying to assimilate his mere ominous presence and feeling slightly irritated by the sheer size. Law had always been proud of his own height, but now, before this man, his pride seemed childish.

However, Law shut the irritation from his mind and focused on more important problems. Like where had this man come from? Law hadn't seen anyone before. Was he one of the gods? Has he magically appeared behind him?

Law was in their sacred world, he had been prepared to face the monsters living here, but this man just looked... normal. Yes, he was quite tall, with a musculature that would make any warrior -like Law for example- pale, and grit their teeth in envy, but besides that he looked normal to Law's eyes.

He had scarlet short hair that seemed to flow with an invisible air and curled between the snowflakes. He also had disturbing golden eyes like the wheat burned under the warn sun of summer, but otherwise he didn't look very different from Law himself. He was definitely a warrior, but he was wearing plain clothes, furs to ward off the cold, and strange boots made of a material that Law couldn't recognize. Law frowned again. Why should a god wear clothes so vulgar instead of the jewels and gold that would announce who he was? Was he human then? Fae? Yeah, probably Fae, Law concluded, there weren't humans in this world.

Except for Law.

Annoyed to find himself caught by surprise by one of the Fae, Law faced the other man completely, showing him a bit of arrogance but also relaxing his fingers over the hilt of the sword at his waist. Fae weren't a treat, not when he had an iron sword. However, Law was a hunter, a warrior and something like this, being caught by surprise, shouldn't have happened. He couldn't lower his guard now when he was so close to achieving his goal, he could not die on the verge of succeeding.

The stranger was also looking at him and for a long and intense moment they both stared in silence. Studying each other with an identical frown. Finally, the stranger's eyes seemed to fall on the hand Law still had over his sword, and on the guarded pose Law still maintained, and his eyes seemed to shine with amusement.

Law for some reason wanted to hit him then.

"Good morning Sir" Law said, ignoring the other's previous warning "I'm sorry to trespass but I'm desperately looking for Ms Kailerte, the famous weather goddess, do you happen to know where I could find her?" Law asked, trying to be polite and have normal conversation with the stranger he already hated.

The redheaded fae, however, instead of answering, just looked at him again from head to toe, and raised a sarcastic, contemptuous eyebrow. Law could even see a faint flame of annoyance glittering in his eyes that, for a moment, confused him.

"No one calls me that nowadays, and the truth is that no one has _ever_ confused me with a damn stupid woman" said the fae, crossing his arms over his chest and exposing the huge muscles of his forearms.

With the gesture, the speckled fur coat also opened and Law noticed the heavy sword with the hilt made of red rubies that the other carried. It was such a huge sword that not a human Law knew would be able to lift it without help. It was a sword worthy belonging to a god.

To make matters worse, as the stranger turned, Law also noticed the huge bison that the other carried on his back as if returning from a hunt, hunting a damn bison at that and carrying it around as if it weighed nothing was the other's normal day.

He was a god. And male, definitely, and overwhelmingly male.

The silence filled the place for a moment as Law accepted the two new fact.

"You?" Law said at last, his voice sounded slightly...disappointed.

"What's with that tone?" the other replied clearly pissed and with a slightly sarcastic tone "Did you want a woman so badly?"

"No, it's not ... wait," Law replied, trying to defend himself but still slightly in shock by the revelation "It can not be, Kalierte is more ..."

"More what?" The stranger's eyes took on a dangerous, unnatural glow. "Full? Over her chest?"

Law simply forced himself to close his mouth. If he wanted to ask a favour to this godde- god! Insulting him on his face and continuing to anger him would not grant it. The fact that it wasn't like Law had imagined - _that he was not even the same gender as the legends said_ \- should not be a problem. Law was a survivor because he adapted, because he expected any surprise and changed the situation to his advantage. This was not going to be different.

"Nothing. Sorry. It wasn't my intention to offend you." Law quickly apologized forcing himself to smile meekly and to look like a weak and docile person.

Cheating was part of survival. The less enemies that considered him a threat and the more they relaxed in front of him, the more Law could gain from them.

However the god's reaction wasn't what Law was used to. The other frowned even more at his false smile, the one Law had managed to perfect until his friends could not distinguish the false from the true one. Instead of smiling back as his friends did and relaxing his guard, the god turned his back to him as if Law was nothing but a fly, as if he didn't have a sword and could attack him. No, the god just turned and looked at the huge cliffs of ice, giving Law his unprotected back.

Law frowned even more and gripped his sword again trying not to answer to the insult. He had done this before. This couldn't affect him anymore.

"What do you want mortal?" Said the redhead without looking at him anymore, sounding tired and bored.

Law was accustomed to his rivals and enemies ignoring him, many times it was what he intended, but this felt different. This didn't seem like the treatment that one person would gave to another he or she considered inferior, this was the treatment that a giant had with an ant. The other was not worried about Law's attack, the mere possibility of Law attacking or hurting him seemed too far off.

Law felt for the first time in years totally helpless before a colossus who could do whatever he wanted with him.

Law shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself not to think and to just do his duty. Law had people to save.

Having practiced the supplication a thousand times under the attentive eyes of his superiors, the brunet fell on his knees and placed an open hand on his chest in the pleading position that he had been instructed by the priests. Then, ordering the words in his mind and remembering the sad voice he had to put, he began.

"I come to implore you, oh mighty god that controls the sky and the sun, if you could stop the rain that threatens to destroy my village and my people." Perfect. Simple and clear. Law had even managed the hurt and affected tone for the first time. His superiors would weep at his brilliant performance.

"No"

"No?" Law raised his head -humbly bowed- without understanding. Had he done something wrong? Was he wrong in something?

"No." repeated the stranger sharply, without even turning around and looking at him, still contemplating the cliffs as if they held the answers of life.

"Why?" Demanded Law rising from the floor with his pride a bit broken at the refusal. _He had got down on his knees_. What else did the other want?

"Do you dare question the 'Oh mighty God who controls the sun and the stars'?"

The asshole was making fun of him. Law was fully convinced of it when the other turned around again to look at him with that arrogance on his face that was beginning to piss Law off more than necessary.

"Yes," he replied with hatred, letting his dangerous temper ruin the situation. Ok, time out. Law breathed. He had to regain control _now_!

The god however smiled for the first time in front of him, showing Law his white teeth in a predatory smile that would make maidens faint.

"I won't stop the rain because I do not want to do so." The other finally replied, folding his arms and smiling with satisfaction. As if seeing Law's suffering was the best thing that had happened to him today.

As if to have the absolute power over the situation and the life of so many men gave him pleasure.

A sadist. The god was a sadist. And a spoiled child apparently.

Law felt a tic begin to appear in his eye. Had he crossed the stinking swamp, the fucking mythological gate and everything for this idiot to say no? Law felt the fingers of his hand close around the hilt of his sword as if ready to dismember the other, but fortunately, he restrained himself at the last moment. He couldn't kill the man he needed a favour from, he could not rise against a god, it would be suicidal, heresy. And surely Law must wait first for the other to make the rain stop before he could _kill_ _him_.

"Excuse me. What the fuck?" Law asked again, forcing himself to stop his murdering instincts and force another horrible smile on his face, but still not being quite able to eliminate the annoyance of his voice and the 'bad' words. But what could he say? He was just a human. A warrior. Patience wasn't his fort.

The other however rolled his eyes and ran a huge hand through the red hair that reached his cheeks in a gesture of boredom and annoyance. As if the fact that Law pressed on his answers only exasperated him.

"Oh come now, magic is not something as simple as you think, mortal" said the magnificent god without even looking into Law's eyes "I can't stop it just because you ask me"

Law felt the tic increase.

If this wasn't a lie, Law did not know what could be. The other _simply_ didn't want to do it! Clutching the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white under the leather glove, Law forced himself to keep smiling. He had survived so far, his village, his people, everything, a stupid god was not going to be different.

"I can not go back to the village like this. You. Have. To stop it!" he ordered without consideration, politeness or respect between clenched teeth.

Because it was done. His patience had evaporated. Another stupid provocation and Law would slice his head off. God or mortal. He didn't care.

"Actually, it's not like you could go back to your village anyway," said the god with a shrug. "So, the answer is still no"

That stopped Law's fury for a moment, and again caused the alert in his mind. He couldn't go back? What?

"What?"

The asshole looked at him again with a look of surprise and concern, but in his eyes Law could see perfectly the satisfaction and victory. Like a man about to give the final blow.

"Oh, don't tell me you don't know? The door is closed, you can't go back" said the other with a devilish smile gesturing to the dead arc of magical stones behind Law "Seriously, don't you listen to the legends and stories? What do they teach you nowadays?"

Law simply couldn't help it.

"That Kaliete is a woman"

The stranger who had turned and started to walk towards the cliffs as if he had won, came to a halt, now clearly pissed not having expected the low blow. Law counted it as a victory. He was in another world. Trapped. But it was a victory.

"Again, what happened to the "oh mighty god" and you getting on your knees?" the assholes keep provoking from the distance.

"It was over when you lost your tits" without mercy, right in the injury where it hurt.

The other one laughed dangerously one last time and his laughter rang loud and warm, like the wind on a summer day. Law hated the sound with passion. But the god kept walking toward the cliffs. An all-powerful god with his huge prey on his back and not stopping to hear the supplication of a mortal.

"The door has closed, and no one knows when it will open again, it may be tomorrow, it may be in a thousand years." said the other, moving further toward the frozen colossus, "Have a good day." he shouted cheerfully, mocking Law's luck. Knowing that in the end it didn't matter what Law said or did, the victory was his.

Law was in a dilemma. He didn't know this world. The other seemed to have hunted something, but Law might not have the same fate. And he definitely could not hunt a bison with the weapons he had available. He could not survive in a place he knew nothing about. Not in a world covered with ice.

Swallowing his pride as he had learned to do, Law shouted at the other's huge back one last time in his best actor voice.

"... let me live with you until it reopens, oh mighty god" he asked, this time with the sneer subtle in his voice.

"No"

Law tried another approach.

"If you leave me here I will die" he said. Guilt many times could change anyone's decision, Law had learned to use it long ago.

"And the world would rejoice, and banquets will be celebrated and poets will sing about this magnificent day" shouted the other from afar.

Law stopped his performance and let the anger, rage and impotence for a situation he could not control and that would cost him his life, flood him.

"Why are you like this?!" He screamed with hate "You're a god! You are supposed to protect us!"

"What are you doing here in the land of gods?" The god's voice sounded loud and clear from the ice cliffs where the stranger had disappeared. Like a caress against the senses, as a whispered against his ear "Aren't you a mere human?"

Without being able to restrain himself, Law kicked the sacred stone gate that had brought him to this world of ice.

...oOo…

Law knew he was going to die, but his death was apparently coming much earlier than he had expected. As soon as the god had departed, a strange storm had broken loose in the place, plunging the world into dense darkness. Law didn't know if it was the god's doing or if this was simply a natural phenomenon, but the storm had been gaining intensity quickly until Law could not even see the ground he was walking on.

Without hesitation, the dark-haired boy had taken refuge among the high cliffs that seemed to form an icy labyrinth, but that had not helped. Moreover, among the fissures of the ice, the air gained strength, and Law now felt the snowflakes struck him like thousands of arrows and scratching against his skin.

Law had been prepared for the water when he had left the village, for rain, for the swamp toxicity, for days without sleep, but not for snow.

And if that wasn't enough, as soon as the stranger left, Law had finished consuming the last pieces of dried meat and hard bread in an attempt to regain strength. After all, if he was going to die, what better facing it with a full stomach? However, now, with the storm over him, the brunette felt his strength escaping in seconds in an attempt to keep the heat.

Law felt his fingers begin to numb from the cold, and for a while he had not been able to stop shivering despite having taken refuge between two huge, narrow ice rocks that had stopped the gusts of wind. The fatigue of the trip had finally taken its toll now that Law had reached its destination and the adrenaline, the need to survive and to reach his goal had vanished. Law felt his body run out, his mind falling asleep in what would be his last dream.

One thing was clear. Law would not survive tonight.

This was the end.

It was at that moment, at that precise moment when his body no longer responded, when he could not even move, that a new shadow appeared in the heavy snow that seemed to be able to bury his body.

The shadow quickly took the form of a kneeling man at his side. A man who took him in his arms lifting him off the floor as if he did not weigh a thing. The man then stepped outside, taking him out of his hiding and last refuge, to expose him to the horrible outside world. Law then waited for the avalanche of snow, the biting wind on his face, the cold that would end it all. However, with astonishment, Law discovered that the snow seemed to divide around the man without affecting him at all, as if to hurt him was the worst thing the snow could do.

"Foolish mortals," commented the stranger of red hair who seemed to float in the snow and in the strange ambience "you are fucking weak"

Law frowned. Law wanted to answer and defend himself, but he was soo tired that he could only fall asleep in the man's arms.

...oOo...

Kidd took the irreverent mortal in his arms as a mother takes his son, and as he had never done with anyone. Then, with steady steps, he entered the ice maze that was his world. The mortal should not be there, but the fact that he had managed to enter meant he had something to do here or the door had not let him pass. Even so, the fact that he was here was dangerous, to him and to Kidd, so the redhead took him down and down. Down the long stairway carved into the ice of one of the ice colossus, through the thick layer of ice that covered the world. Until it ceased to be ice and became something else.

His home.

Zoro was waiting for him at the entrance, his chest bare like his feet, the green haired man was only wearing his combat pants in the deep cold, probably having interrupted one of his training session to go meet him. He was frowning in disapproval, watching the mortal in his arms with distrust, but as Kidd approached he just moved from the door to let Kidd get inside without saying anything. It has been years since his friend had said something. Zoro had not smiled for an even longer time, taking refuge inside himself in a place where Kidd could not reach him.

They were friends. Almost family. They had the others back. Kidd will never leave Zoro and Zoro will never leave him. That's why, although the green haired man knew the stories, the laws, and understood what it could mean to them what Kidd was doing, he accompanied Kidd silently inside into the glass caves that formed his house.

This place had been described by mortals as the country of the whales, the kingdom below where Sedna, the daughter of the sea, lived. Another mistake of the mortals, Zoro also _was not_ a woman. Even so, the kingdom of the green haired man was really beautiful, dark, calm and silent as the two god's needed, but beautiful. The palace, built of the purest crystal under the icy waters of the ocean, allowed the viewer to see all the unique fauna of that sea.

Zoro glanced again at the mortal Kidd carried while a huge humpback whale passed overhead. The huge creature contrasted with the small space of the corridor, and almost made them both look insignificant. Kidd looked at the thin lines that ran down the animal's back, which glowed with the strange light that all the creatures in this world had and which, this time, illuminated the two gods and the pale face of the mortal through the glass.

"Is he ill?" Murmured Zoro without the slightest expression on his face.

Kidd blinked. Trying hard not to react at the first words from his friend in centuries, trying to act as if it was normal. So Kidd just shook his head answering his question.

The mortal was not sick, they were just too weak. Fragile. He had not even endured the snow. His body was much thinner than other mortals Kidd had seen in the other world, his skin frozen, his clothes ragged, soaked and worn. The sword Kidd had seen him grab as if his life depended on it, was old and certainly not edged.

He was not important. He was not someone different. Why had the door let him in?

"Then why is he ... like this? He can't be so weak, the others are not so weak" continued Kidd's friend, speaking again for the first time in a long time, causing Kidd to shudder at the sound of his friend's dead voice.

"I think there was a mistake," Kidd said, because why would someone like this be sent to them? How useful was someone so weak?

"The door does not make mistakes," continued Zoro, pausing in front of the opaque amber door of one of the rooms of the palace.

Kidd just shrugged and, entering the room, threw the human on the bed with roughness. Then he put one of the heavy sealskin covers above him as he had seen mortals do to keep the heat. The boy's clothes were still wet, but Kidd was not going to strip the other. The human would not die for from wet clothes. Kidd could already feel him slowly recovering his strength as they spoke, now he breathed easier, now he felt warmer, but even then, it would take him a long time to regain consciousness.

 _Useless_.

Kidd walked out of the room without looking back, not wasting another second of his precious time with the boy. Accepting a mortal in his house could cost him his life, the laws were clear, but he would not let him die outside like that. The words of the other continued rumbling in his head _"Aren't you a god? Shouldn't you protect us?"_ Kidd frowned irritably. He was a god, but not the kind of god the other believed he was, yet he still had principles and a pride to keep.

"Are you going to send him back to his world?" Zoro asked, seriously watching Kidd leave the room and closing it behind him.

"When the door opens" he answered.

"What about the favor he asked for?" Said the other, clearly having seen the meeting between them. Being a god had its advantages after all. Both of them could physically be in one place, but their soul and mind could be far, so far away that it reached another world.

"... You know it's not so easy," Kidd said without looking into his friend's eyes.

"No," whispered Zoro at his back, pushing himself of the wall and beginning to walk along the rough glass corridor to the room where he used to spend the hours in solitude. "It's never easy"

Zoro had his own problems. As Kidd. Both dangerous and deadly. The world of the gods was an idyllic place for mortals. The paradise, the sky, the place to die for. Little did they know about reality, about the battles, about the suffering that could last for generations. The mortals who came to this world never survived, _could never return_.

But perhaps it was better this way, maybe it was better to give hope to a few, sometimes it was all that remained. Maybe it was better for someone to remember them with admiration and the respect they had lost.

Turning, Kidd walked away from the room that now belonged to the boy from the other world and went to his own at the end of the glass corridor to continue trying something impossible.

While on the outside of his home it was still snowing, while in the mortal world it was still raining, and while Kidd still found no solution to his problem.

...oOo...

He has been centuries waiting. Years, months, days counting the seconds until he could have his chance. But he had finally got it. At last they had made a mistake, had broken one of the capital rules and brought misfortune to their own. This time they would not be forgiven. Not a second time. In the end, he could make them fall, usurp their place and take the post that belonged to him by right.

At last he could take revenge on them.

The young god licked his mouth, thinking how he would make them plead, how perfect it would feel to see them beg for their lives. But he still could not rush. The god had learned from his mistakes and would not fall a second time, this time he would be the one who would laugh the last and would have the power.

So he would wait. For the right moment, for the moment when the blow would end them and hurt the most. He had to study them first. First, he should understand their weak point.

Enel had been patient. He had survived and stayed in the shadows ... he could wait a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as you might see, it is not norse mytology, I know we all love it, but I don't know a lot about it while people do and I don't feel confident with it, and I don't wanna cause drama, so it will be Skimo Myths that no one knows about!
> 
> Kidd is Qailertetang (I changed and shortened the name cos is already hard to write as it is XD) the goddess of the natural phenomena and animals. Zoro is Sedna one of the most important godess of the Inuit mitology, she had a lot of legends about her and it's kind of interesting XD
> 
> In any case, thanks a lot for the support guys, love you.


	3. Down Below, Down Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am again, I haven't had a lot of comments so I don't know if you like the story, but since it's also holidays I will wait. About posting I'm going from my home for a few months so I don't know if I will be able to post. I hope I am, but well, who knows. In any case thanks for reading, and lots of love and hugs for the one leaving reviews, hope you like this one. As always special thanks to my beta, hope I see you soon.

" _Waves will rise on silent water"_

_\- Gaelic Proverb_

When Law woke, the world around him didn't make any sense at all, the room he was in coming out from his wilder dreams or his worst nightmares. A rough, coarse glass that imitated the stones of a cave covered the floor, walls and ceiling in a show of light and shadows that seemed to dance with the water and the fire from the fireplace. The view was breathtaking, the room seeming spacious and wild. It was made of glass for god's sake, a room made with the strange material would could cost the money of a whole kingdom! Yet what left Law speechless wasn't the room, but the huge and strange creatures that could be seen on the other side.

Jellyfish gleaming in the darkness of the water with a pale green hue, fishes with huge teeth and distinctive blue designs on their backs, thousands of gigantic snakes, stingrays, corals, and so, so much more. All of them drawn from the old stories, myths, monsters, now swimming around him behind the glass, making him feel as if Law could touch them just by raising a hand.

After turning around the room several times following the different creatures, Law decided to get out of bed feeling still a bit confused about his whereabouts. Sitting between the sheets, he realized then that his clothes were still muddy and that they seemed to have soaked the huge fluffy bed he was in. To Law's relief his knives and his sword were still with him. Good, because Law had the habit of getting _slightly_ nervous when he found himself weaponless.

But what had happened? Where was he? Law remembered the idiotic god -who might not be such an idiot since he had saved his life- rescuing him from a certain death, but that did not explain why he was in this stunning place. This didn't look like the kingdom or the palace of the god of the sky. Or a prison as Law had expected.

Getting out of the bed and feeling his boots suddenly sink into the soft, warm fur of a polar bear, Law stood motionless for a moment, observing the darkness that stretched beneath his feet like a black abyss under the floor of glass.

 _Tempting, thrilling, cold_. Law found himself staring at it, with clenched fists, his breathe accelerating, slowly sinking into the blackness.

A click sounded in front of him.

Lifting his eyes, Law focused on the bright, warm fire burning in the stone fireplace of the room. He focused on the bright creatures on the other side of the glass in the calm light. He simply forced himself to ignore the call of the abyss. Unlike other children who feared it Law had always been drawn to it, to the darkness, the cold, the hidden. It was something he knew was wrong, something that had always made him uneasy and had caused problems.

Law knew he was different, broken, wrong. He had tried to fight it when he was younger, be normal, like others, but soon he had learned that that was not possible.

So Law tried to ignore the pit beneath his feet and simply focused on his surroundings. The room was not very big, but with the transparent glass, the feeling of the size got amplified. It harbored a bed, a fireplace, a closet that turned out to be full of clothes when Law opened it, and what looked like a huge black glass tub surrounded by soaps.

Without the glass walls and the stunning view, it wasn't a place out of legends, it wouldn't take your breath away, but still, it was better than anything Law ever had.

Stripping and hanging his clothes by the fireplace to dry, Law studied the bathtub. His body was still weak and cold and the thought of a hot bath was just too tempting to ignore. A bath to relax his muscles, to give him warmth, and to allow the weird and smelly mud accumulated on his skin after weeks of sleeping under the rain, to finally go away.

Approaching the furniture of precious, black and polished stone, Law ran his fingers along the soft surface fascinated by the smooth texture. The furniture suddenly lit up in a blue soft color and the water began to flow from the bottom with a loud sound. Law retreated scared. What had he done? Was something broken? Was he flooding the room?

However, when the water seemed to reach a point ready to overflow, and Law felt ready to panic, the sound stopped, the light vanished and the water calmed reflecting the precious images and symbols carved into the walls of the room.

Law carefully approached the steaming surface again and slowly put a hand inside. Warm, almost boiling, just as Law adored and desperately needed.

Singing in relief, Law contemplated then if he should really get inside the strange water and the magical tub, but finally he frowned, sending all caution to hell. Law was in another world, in another dimension, he had to be prepared for things like this, for monsters, for things he just couldn't understand. _He should not show weakness over a simple bath_. So, without hesitation Law took one of the herbal soap tablets of the pile and got into the tub, ready to confront whatever happened.

For a while Law rubbed himself in the water, removing the mud, the dirt and the sweat of the travel looking uneasy at any sound the device made, but after some time of peace and normality he was leaning against the black stone, enjoying the heat and ready to fall asleep.

He seemed to be more tired than he'd thought.

It was then, when Law was about to fall back into unconsciousness in the relaxing tub, that the door burst open causing him to jump and water splashing everywhere.

Sitting up quickly, Law took the dagger that he had left beside the bathtub, -always ready for the battle- and leaned forward in a position of attack. As a warrior, always focused, always trusting his instinct. But that instinct was also a weakness, and without helping it, he also turned a bit into the water, losing the strategic position, not letting the other see what was on his back, the embarrassment that even his tattoos had failed to cover.

But in front of him was just the idiotic god. Now without the cape and without the sword, only with heavy black pants, the heavy boots, and his chest covered by a black shirt that seemed to make his muscles stand out even more. Two worn out leather bracelets covered his exposed forearms, and a dark leather strap seemed to hold his hair and kept it from getting into his eyes.

He looked good. Dangerous.

Now, without the layers of fur hiding his body, he also looked even bigger, taller, stronger. Law felt the embarrassment and humiliation grow in him as he remembered how the other had carried him in his arms the last time, like a weak woman, and without being able to avoid it, he frowned angrily trying to hide the blush in his cheeks.

"So you're finally awake," the stranger announced before closing the door behind him, clearly smirking at Law's extreme reaction.

Law ignored it. Instead he stared at the tray of food the other was carrying, the scent that suddenly flooded the room causing his stomach to protest. Freshly baked bread, smoked salmon, and vegetables stewed with wine. His mind seemed to stop just by smelling the delicious food, and Law remembered sadly that he had been weeks without eating a decent meal other than dried meat, cheese, and hardened bread.

"Where am I?" Law asked however, not letting the other see his weakness, not showing how hungry he was. Weakness was a death sentence, and after what had happened, Law needed to regain control of the situation, to show the god he won't be able to take advantage of anything.

"In a friend's house," replied the other, leaving the tray of food on the bed and approaching Law who was still in the bathtub with his dagger in his hand not moving at all.

The hunger was a weakness right now, but Law had also never been comfortable with someone else seeing him naked. For many reasons, and the way the redhead stood in front of him and folded his arms with a frown make him uneasy. Law wanted to dig the knife in his huge chest hating being so helpless.

"You seem ... different" the god anounced.

Law wanted to roll his eyes and stab him even more. The last time he had been on the verge of collapse. Now he had rested, was clean, still needed to regain the musculature and weight he had lost, but still he felt a thousand times better.

The other, however, seemed to study him more closely than that. As if Law had suddenly aroused his interest. The brunet forced himself to hold still and withstand the scrutiny while the other's eyes seemed to stare at his tattoos, pecs and biceps before disappearing under the water that reached his waist. _Law hated being naked in front of others_.

Finally the god realized what he was doing and looked away frowning.

"I brought you food," said the other in a tone that seemed threatening and slightly uncomfortable as he ran a hand through his hair. "You can also wear the clothes in the wardrobe and sleep here till the door opens. Do you mortals need anything else?"

Law lowered the dagger from the defense position, but still held it in his hands ready for an attack. The other did not seem to want to hurt him, but Law had long learned not to trust anyone. So instead he faked another of his forced smiles and answered the god's question with as much annoyance as he could show.

"You could stop the rain"

The other went from relaxed to tense in seconds. The look that the other gave him then could cause storms and hurricanes even under the water.

"I told you I do not want to," he said in a voice that froze Law's blood that froze the whole world. "Ask me again, and I swear it will be the last thing you do mortal"

"Trafalgar Law," Law answered with another half-smile, as if a god had not just threatened him, as if this was one of his daily conversations.

"What?" Asked the confused redhead.

"My name, Trafalgar Law, don't call me mortal," Law continued, still smiling, but this time with the same menacing tone as the other, making him look as a crazy murderous person. Subtlety was the key sometimes.

The other one opened his eyes slightly, as if surprised by Law's stupidity and lack of self preservation, or maybe his creepy smile, but finally the god shrugged ignoring him.

"I don't care-"

"You said no one calls you Kalirte," Law interrupted without giving him a chance to continue. "What do they call you then?"

The other frowned again in annoyance. Law was secretly having fun.

"Kidd, Eustass Kidd"

"Eustass Kidd," Law repeated, staring at him, "the god who controls the weather, but can not even stop the rain," Law said matter of factly, still deep in the boiling water.

The atmosphere of the room changed abruptly again. The light from the chimney seemed to shine less, the creatures on the other side of the glass seemed to fade into nowhere, fleeing the place, while the god himself seemed to grow a few inches.

The stranger's eyes even seemed to glow with a supernatural hue.

"Do you have a death wish?" Asked the other, not moving, without changing his position, but suddenly looking much more intimidating "I told you that I don't _want_ to, not that I can't"

Law knew he had to keep quiet, that he should not provoke him any more. If you kicked a rabid dog it could bite you. But instinct, the one who was attracted to the darkness, to the abyss, told him it was now or never. He had to insist, he had to prove the god that he was not afraid of him, that he would continue to ask for it even if it costs him his life. Maybe the other was a god, a rabid dog, but Law also had a mission to fulfill, he had been sacrificed for this.

Leaning on the edge of the bath with his arms crossed, Law stared at him from the water, dropping his false smile and his whole façade, looking at him in the eye as serious and angry as the other.

"Prove it" he challenged.

The other tensed even more. His eyes became murderous, and Law suddenly realised with surprise that he had been right. The problem wasn't that the other didn't want to stop the rain, it was that he didn't have the power to do it. But why? Wasn't he the weather god? Didn't he handle weather at his whim?

However, before he could say anything, ask the questions, demand a fucking answer, the other turned and began to walk to the door with clenched fists and the atmosphere of the room about to unleash a storm from the electricity in the air. Law had learned a secret. A secret the god didn't want him to know.

He had power over the god. As the other had over him. They were on the same level now, equals. Law felt the shift of power and feel a strange satisfaction bloom in his chest.

"When the damn door opens, I'm going to kick you out of this world," Law heard him mutter under his breath. Angry. Defeated.

Law watched him walk to the door, slightly amused with the god's anger, satisfied, but still quite worried. If the other could not stop the rain, what could he do? Law still didn't know much about this world to try to find a solution. Hell, he had been scared of a bath! His situation was still too precarious. Watching the other's back start disappearing through the door Law decided to make one last question. The one that had been haunting his mind since he'd woken up.

"Why did you save my life?" He asked, feeling uneasy at the other's motives, he might have control over one of the god's secrets, he might have gained a bit of control, but he still have a lot to learn.

He still owed the other his life.

The god had been clear the first time. Law's life did not matter in the least, Law meant nothing, was nobody, and was totally defenseless against the god. Then why?

Kidd peered over his shoulder from the door with a new arrogant smile, and his eyes filled with hatred. Clearly, the problem with his power was a delicate subject, and the god was looking at him now with a slight air of superiority.

"Because I can and you don't " he replied slamming the door behind him.

Law wanted to roll his eyes. _"Because I'm stronger than you" "Because my dick is bigger than yours"_ He wanted to scream and see how he could piss off the god even more. The god could be so childish at times that Law could not wait to make fun of him. But instead Law just stepped out of the tub and went for the food. The bathtub began to empty instantly with that gurgling sound, but Law ignored it, his mind busier with other matters.

Sitting by the fire to dry on a low, fluffy couch, Law began to devour his first hot meal in months with a sense of satisfaction and acomplisment.

...oOo...

Kidd punched Zoro again, but as usual the green haired man dodged it easily, grabbed him by the wrist and without much effort threw him over his head against the cold ground. Kidd fell onto the furs and rugs that covered the training room as the only furniture and groaned as his head hit the floor hard .

Normally training and practicing with Zoro relaxed him, both had known each other for years and knew the other's way of moving and fighting. Zoro was a better swordsman than Kidd, but the redhead always won in hand-to-hand combat. Both had fought together thousands of times, both knew every weak point of the other.

Today, however, Kidd seemed to be distracted, and Zoro, realizing it, crossed his arms in front of him with a face of annoyance. If, for Kidd, this sessions helped him relax, for the green haired man they had become a new need. Zoro trained like his life depended in it. The green haired man needed to practice each and every day to keep his mind and rage in check. To calm down and move on.

Zoro took trainings very seriously.

So Kidd ignored the disappointed look of his friend, and lay down on the soft skins on the floor and looked at the bright roof above his head, so close to the surface of the sea that it seemed to reflect the very light of the sun.

This was not going to work, today Kidd felt like he could do nothing, his mind kept rambling and going back to the boy he had gone to see a moment ago to bring him food.

Now that his rage after the discussion had calmed down Kidd was beginning to notice certain problems. The boy had tensed and turned to face him when Kidd had come in, even when Kidd had moved around the room the boy had always followed his movement as if preparing for an attack, or so he had thought, now Kidd realized the impractical defense positions of the other and how he seemed to be hiding something on his back. Besides, the boy continued to put on that unnerving fake smile thinking that Kidd would not notice it, keep hiding things, pressing him. The provocations, the insults, he even seemed to believe himself capable of manipulating him even though Kidd was a god.

He had also discovered his most cruel secret.

Kidd already detested the mortal and they had hardly interacted. Even so, despite his frustration, his mind kept coming back to him. His mind returned to the dark lines of the tattoos highlighting his dark skin so different from Kidd's pale one. The scars trailing over a chest, much stronger than Kidd had expected, but still full of elegant and lean lines.

The boy was like a rough diamond, he hid much more than at first glimpse and Kidd couldn't help but be amazed and _hate_ each new thing he discovered from the boy. But, as if his exotic looks and attitude were not enough to catch anybody's attention, his intelligence wasn't left behind. The boy seemed to hide behind a mask of stupidity and weakness, hiding his quick eyes, and sharp thoughts, but Kidd could see through it, the façade even felt when the boy was pissed.

And if he could see the diamond under the mud, so could others. Kidd supposed that the boy was quite popular in his world with such attributes, he might have many lovers, perhaps even with wife and children. That thought made him frown and get even more annoyed for a reason he didn't understand. So, shaking his head again, he focused on the important things: the total lack of respect on the boy's part.

"When have mortals lost their respect for us?" Kidd asked, looking at a group of fish glistening on the ceiling of the room, looking curiously at the two gods.

Zoro sighed with resignation and finally seemed to surrender with the training. Kidd was not at his best today and they both seemed to understand it. So instead, Zoro lay down beside Kidd between the skins, and rested his head on the redhead's leg as he sometimes did. Zoro was still shirtless, sweaty after training, with hard focused eyes and messed hair, but Kidd did not notice how imposing his friend's was, only the huge scar that ran across his chest.

The scar of that time, the one that reminded him of the consequences of disobeying the rules. The one that always made his chest tight from just seeing it.

"I do not want to talk about it," Zoro announced, his eyes already closed, ready to fall asleep on Kidd as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Kidd understood that the other did not want to talk about it. This was taboo for his friend and they both knew the answer to the question. So he did not say anything when the green haired man began to snore. Lately it was costing Zoro more and more to just sleep. Just as Kidd was finding it harder and harder to master his power.

The gods were not what they had been. Their golden age had passed centuries ago and they were now in a clear decline. There were fewer and fewer mortals in the world, less and less people worshipping them and telling their legends. The fact that a mortal had come through the door and remained alive for more than a minute, already told much of the point where his civilization was. Kidd understood for a moment the insults and contempt of the mortal, they no longer conveyed the fear and respect they had once imposed, if the boy had said the same words when Kidd had been young, he would be dead by now.

Kidd knew that the incident and the tragedy with Zoro had only been the beginning, the detonator centuries ago. But the fact that they had done nothing to stop the decline also meant that it was the fault of the rest. When the first god had perished and vanished into nothingness the surprise had been great, but even then they had done nothing. His civilization was disappearing, its knowledge, its culture, its power.

Now even the magic or the world didn't seem to respond to them.

The fact that the sky and earth in their world were frozen, already indicated what was happening to Kidd and all other gods. The fact that his magic had even reached the human world and had started to cause disasters, announced that the end was near. And if they perished, the world would also disappear.

But it was inevitable. It was the cycle of life. Everything that was born must die and now their time has come.

Kidd watched his friend Zoro sleeping placidly for the first time in weeks on top of him. Zoro might have started it all, but Kidd would never blame him for what had happened, no, Zoro had been the victim of the tragedy, the real culprit had been and always would be another.

The one whom Kidd had always hated since he was born into this world.

Kidd closed his eyes and locked those treacherous thoughts inside him. Betrayal right now was something that could not be allowed and was something that would instantly kill him if someone realized what was going through his mind. No, Kidd had to hide his true feelings as he was now even weaker than he had been before, now he had rescued a mortal from death and broken one of the sacred rules of his people.

If someone noticed and started a conflict, neither Zoro nor he would survive. The mortal wouldn't either.

...oOo...

Zoro watched as his friend cooked the huge animal that he had managed to hunt even though they both lived in the middle of nowhere. Kidd used to love cooking, Zoro would never understand why, but he suspected that feeling the heat and fire again in his hands helped him overcome the loss of his powers. Zoro had never said anything about it, and, after the thousands of years that they had lived together, Zoro could not say that the other was not a great cook.

However, today, his friend, instead of smiling and looking slightly happier while cooking, was frowning as he argued with the mortal boy who, again, wanted to know why Kidd couldn't save his village. Zoro wanted to smile only at seeing the determination and passion that the mortal seemed to be putting into this, but unfortunately smiling was something that he had forgotten to do centuries ago.

Kidd snarled again beside the huge fire clearly annoyed by the subject but unable to change the course of the conversation. The boy rolled his eyes in clear exasperation and Zoro, from one of the shadows of the immense blue crystal cave that served as a kitchen only watched them with raised curiosity.

Kidd was his friend, the only one in that unforgivable world whom Zoro regarded as such. Without lies, without ulterior motives, without looking for something else in exchange of their friendship. No, Kidd had helped and protected him when Zoro had lost everything and had asked for nothing in return, but to let share his home so that Kidd could watch over him and make sure that Zoro would recover. Since then, and although Kidd had been of a lower social rank than Zoro, the green haired man had always considered him as part of his family and had made sure that nothing happened to him.

That is why, now, Zoro studied the mortal from the darkness of his hiding place seriously. The boy who was making his friend begin to change without even realizing it. Zoro understood, he too had been fascinated with mortals long ago and this one in particular seemed to hold too many secrets and mysteries.

The boy looked better, his skin no longer as pale and cold as the first time he'd seen him, his appearance now cleaner and somewhat recovered. The clothes he wore now -the fine woolen sweater and the combat pants he had probably found in his room- were all well-fitting and emphasized his lean but strong appearance. Clearly he was attractive and also quite intelligent if he was able to make Kidd so angry so quikly.

The green haired man knew that the boy had been exploring his castle, trying to escape, or perhaps just getting acquainted with the place. Zoro controlled that world under the water, it was his territory and his magic the one who supported it, and therefore he knew every step and movement of the creatures that lived there. The boy was not only smart but curious too. It was a dangerous combination, but he was still a mortal. It would be easy to kill him in case a problem arised and they needed to get rid of him. Zoro knew from experience how fragile a human life was, and the boy in front of him did not inspire him any trust yet, so better be prepared.

The boy asked again about Kidd's power. His dear friend stopped cutting the meat of the bison and threw the knife at the boy, missing only by a few millimeters and causing the weapon to end up stuck in the glass.

The boy however didn't seem to be disturbed by the attack as many other mortals would be and, after a moment, he resumed asking. Kidd cursed. Zoro wondered again who the boy was to be so fearless and insistent.

However, that was a question for another time, the old god needed to go out and breathe some fresh air. Meeting new people was exhausting. Mortals were something that Zoro always tried to avoid.

So Zoro glared at Kidd one last time before leaving the room. Zoro hated that the redhead sometimes damaged parts of the house during his outbursts of anger. It was an argument they had had several times and had cost them more than a scar. He would have him pay later for the knife in the wall.

Walking through the long, dark corridors of his house under the ocean, Zoro finally managed to reach the surface and entrance of the place, and go out onto the icy surface.

Just to end up frozen when he saw what happened there.

It had stopped snowing.

It was a change that many would not even notice, something that was simply insignificant in a world of gods. But not for Zoro. Zoro had watched his friend's magic decline with alarm. He had seen the sun cover with clouds, the rain, the storms, and finally the placid and cold snow that for centuries and centuries had covered his world in white.

Until now.

Now for the first time in years, it had stopped snowing. Instead, immense and threatening storm clouds flooded the sky, pouring an icy rain and dangerous lightning over the huge cliffs of ice. With the rain, the snow almost looked able to melt and expose the earth below and the shores of his world.

For a moment Zoro only watched it fall. Strong and furious from the sky. But why had this change occurred? Why right now? Why did the weather seem to be getting better? The only new thing in Kidd's life was ...

Zoro felt the surprise and panic flooding him, and this time he could not help but contain the alarm that appeared on his face. The fate was too ironic. Too cruel. It could not happen again, not him, not his friend.

The story seemed to be repeating itself as Zoro had never imagined. But under the heavy rain, this time Zoro made a promise. This time he would not let the tragedy happen, this time he would fight to protect what deserved to be protected.

Turning around, Zoro returned to his kingdom ready to kill himself in another training session. Then it would be time to talk with a mortal that might be more important to them than he had first realized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, the castle is made of cristal, at first I thought about the tipical igloos, but it didn't seem practical, I didn't want Kidd to lose an important part of his anatomy in the middle of a smut cos it had frozen to death. So yeah, glass it is. Glass was also a weird and rich material in old times so it adds to Law's image of an imposible world.
> 
> Hope you have liked it.


	4. The Sun Rises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, I'm sorry for the delay but I have been hella tired and hella bussy, I don't even know what I'm publishing, if I do it write and well, you will probably have to thank my beta for saving the day. In any case thanks a lot for the support and the comments, I hope you like this chap. There are a few funny parts (or at least they were funny in my sleep deprived mind.

_"He's the slave of all slaves who serves none but himself"_

_-Smoker, second ancient, about Trafalgar Law_

 

Kidd looked again at the arrogant mortal and Zoro, both bowed over an old wooden bow where ancient and defied combat weapons were exhibited. Zoro -as a warrior who has fought in several wars and has known the importance of a good sword- was explaining to the brunette the uses and advantages of each of the knives and daggers of the chest. The god spoke of the rusty swords in a monotonous, emotionless tone, as always, but still, there was also a loving undertone in his voice. His passion for the worn metals made Kidd remember the old days when Zoro's passion for weapons had turned him into one of the higher ranks of their society.

Before the incident.

Kidd ignored the dark thoughts that always returned to the same place since the mortal had arrived and returned to focus on the situation that still didn't make any sense.

The mortal and Kidd had been in one of the common rooms, the library. Plagued with floor to ceiling shelves covered in books, parchments and tablets, the library was small, but had a bit of everything including books of runes, symbols and long forgotten languages that covered every topic and that weren't so known and made the library a bit special. Both of them had been reading quietly at both ends of the room, Law seizing the opportunity to be able to read the holy scriptures none had ever seen, and Kidd watching over him not trusting the boy. At the end, both had stared at each other with hatred for a few hours as huge jellyfish seemed to surround the library with comfortable sofas and warm fireplaces as if they expected another confrontation between them like earlier in the kitchen.

Zoro had come in then, returning from his unusual walk, and without sending Kidd even a glance, he had stopped in front of the mortal, as if the boy finally had his approval. For a moment Kidd found himself confused at the sudden change in his friend's attitude. Zoro didn't want to interact with mortals. Ever. But what had bothered Kidd the most had been the face of the boy, that had illuminated with surprise and almost respect when hearing Zoro's name and recognizing who he was. Sedna, god of the sea, one of the big five.

That definitely has not happened to Kidd who, despite everything, should be the priority and hero of the annoying boy. It was him who controlled the climate and on whom the future of those stupid people depended on after all. But ignoring him as if he was not even there, the other two started talking, Zoro with that dead monosyllabic tone and the boy with his dry black humor and sarcastic smiles.

The conversation had swiftly shifted from simple presentations to the weapons that were displayed on the walls of the room, which, as everyone knew, were Zoro's favorite subject and obsession. Shortly afterwards both have gone to the exhibitors on the walls.

Kidd now felt an increasing irritation within him.

The mortal seemed simply fascinated with Zoro, and kept asking, joking and smiling with a lopsided grin, entertained by the monosyllables that Zoro was able to pronounce. Not with the fake smile that the other put on his face so many times when talking to him, the one he tried to manipulate Kidd with, but a real one that would make many women blush just seeing it.

Kidd wanted to smash something.

The boy was attractive. Kidd had to acknowledge it. The redhead would have never thought that someone so thin and so _weak_ , would interest him, but the more he knew and learned about the boy the more he seemed to end up becoming obsessed. The raven seemed to have a proud elegance in all his gestures, as if behind his disheveled appearance and seductive looks something shouted at every step the boy walked that he belonged to nobility. His features were slender and strong, his black hair begged for Kidd to stroked it and put the wild strands into order, his gray eyes made him remember the sky and ...

Kidd hit himself mentally. What the fuck? At this pace he was going to compose poems about the boy and be the laughingstock of his world. A god did not fall in love with a mortal. They were perfection, they were admired, not the other way around.

But Kidd couldn't deny that since the day before when he had seen Law naked in the bath, he had not been able to stop thinking about it. The tattoos, and the dark tanned skin that despite its colour had never seen the sun, the water caressing him, his parted lips... The other was a walking temptation for someone who had been more than three centuries without more contact than his silent friend. Not that he didn't appreciate his encounters with Zoro, but it was not the same, Zoro was a friend, his brother in arms, there was not the same passion or need as with a lover.

However, it wasn't like Kidd, the god of climate, the one all life depended on would bed a simple mortal. One he didn't even trust.

In any case, ignoring his treacherous mind which refused to acknowledge the attraction, Kidd focused on the current situation that kept him infuriated. Even Zoro himself seemed to be dazzled by the mortal and seemed to frown in confusion at every question and every smile of the brunette. Kidd understood Zoro's fascination, mortals had always been his weak point and this one in particular seemed to have thousands of secrets. But that did not take away the irritation he still felt every time Zoro seemed to smile back at the boy.

Why did they get along so suddenly? Why not with Kidd? Why did Zoro suddenly have so much interest in the boy? Kidd had been the one who found him lying in the snow and had rescued him from a certain death. This mortal was his. The green haired man had to respect the limitations. And why did suddenly the brunette smile so much? Zoro, no matter how much he tried, was not so amusing. Why did the mortal seem to worship his friend and not him?

Kidd felt his fists tighten and the pages of the book in his hands began to wrinkle to the point of tearing. Even the old wooden chair where he sat next to one of the fireplaces seemed to tremble at his fury.

When Law returned to smile at his friend with another sarcastic joke and Zoro finally put an arm around the boy's shoulders in a gesture that Kidd knew very well, Kidd had had enough. Rising from his place, and approaching the pair with long strides, Kidd grabbed the mortal on one arm and pushed him away from the arms of his friend without the least delicacy.

"I'm going hunting and you're coming with me," he said looking at Zoro before turning to the thin mortal to hiss "it's time you make a living"

Then, without even understanding why, Kidd wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulders and pushed him to his chest in a clearly possessive way he would never recognize in himself. Then, to finish his humiliation, he glared at Zoro with a clear warning. _The mortal was his. He had found him._

However, instead of meeting his friend's offended or surprised face -as Kidd himself was surprised at himself- Kidd found Zoro only smiling back, for the first time in years, in that arrogant way which made him look incredibly attractive and hot.

But also with a calculating spark in the eyes that Kidd recognized from the thousands of battles that they had fought together. Zoro was plotting something. However, before Kidd could do anything to inquire into it, the mortal shifted in his arms until he was able to nail an elbow hard into his stomach.

"Do not touch me," he said angrily, getting rid of Kidd's grip with hatred, and a look of annoyance, before turning and heading for the door of the room with one hand pressed onto his sword.

And again the absurd rage returned. Zoro had touched him the same way. Why could Kidd not? Again, giving Zoro a look of annoyance, Kidd went out, chasing after the mortal.

...oOo...

Law walked behind the huge god over the thick blanket of snow that covered the world, still feeling quite pissed. He couldn't understand this man. The redhead was the exact opposite of what Law had always imagined of a god, without respect, arrogant, without the slightest concern for those whom he had to care for. The other just looked like a spoiled brat.

Law felt more and more frustrated as the days passed by, he did not understand how he could convince someone like him to help him, to stop the rain and save thousands of lives, if the other only cared for himself.

Law had never been good with children.

Sinking his boots into the heavy piles of snow that seemed to have begun melting in spite of the thick clouds, Law wrapped himself even tighter into the white cloak that the other had given him. Law watched the colossus ahead of him, who was also covered in white, camouflaging into their surroundings. They had been walking the enormous white esplanade for hours now without a word.

Law could not hold back the sigh that escaped his lips again. It would have been much easier if it had been Zoro who controlled the weather. The other god seemed at least more receptive to Law's questions, and though he seemed unable to utter a sentence that had more than two syllables, he seemed to have accepted Law in a way that the redhead certainly had not.

_Law felt that Zoro considered him an equal, not inferior like Kidd._

"What is the matter with you now?" The red-haired god clearly said, having heard his sigh, and also clearly pissed at Law's mere presence.

"Nothing," replied the man in the same annoying tone. Why did he have to go hunting with this man? Did they seriously expect him to kill anything in the realm of the gods? Wasn't that a sacrilege or something? "Where exactly are we going? Is there still a lot to go?"

But as if that were his goal in life, the other ignored him and just kept on pissing him off even more. Law wanted to push him into the white snow that covered the esplanade they were crossing. He wanted to take one of the arrows behind him and drill it through him. However, before Law could do anything, the other stopped suddenly, causing Law to collide against his huge back.

"What the hell?" He cursed heavily.

But before he could protest further, Kidd turned, covered his mouth with a huge hand and forced him to crouch in the white snow beside him.

"There he is" said the other in a whisper against his ear, his body surrounding him, his warm breath and his hoarse voice making Law feel his pulse quicken.

But the other's eyes were clearly fixed elsewhere. Ignoring his unwelcome reaction, Law followed his gaze, understanding at last that they had found the prey they had been searching for. Feeling his hunter instinct take hold of him, Law knocked the other off of him, took the huge bow from behind him that had been given to him by the god, and studied the huge white esplanade that was the world across the cliffs of ice and the stone door.

And there, in the distance, nearly invisible in the world of ice and snow where they were, Law at last saw an enormous bear with glittering white fur, ambling lazily towards them.

Law drew his bow slowly, without uttering the slightest sound. This bow might not have been like his smaller and fragile one, but Law had long since trained himself to be able to fight with any weapon.

Law glanced at the god in case he could interfere with his hunt. Law didn't know what to expect but the image he received left him speechless. The god was still at his side, kneeling imposingly in the snow with his red hair twirling in the soft breeze and his whole body ready for battle. But what troubled Law was his smile, the other was smiling, but in a cruel, dark, and twisted way. His eyes seemed to shine with the light of a thousand suns, his body seemed to grow, his aura was changing.

In one instant, the irritating god disappeared to be replaced by another. A god of death.

Uncomfortable with the image, Law turned back to watch his prey. The sky above the bear seemed to writhe then, to darken before it shone with the light that announces the arrival of lightning and thunder. Law frowned. So the god could control the weather. Still something didn't seem right.

Law still had decided to beat the other at his own game. If he hunted the damn bear before the god, it might prove to him that mortals were not as useless as the other believed. Maybe he would see him as an equal at fucking last.

Focusing his sight and pointing the arrow at the huge animal, Law calmed his breathing, cleared his mind and took a breath. But then another small white bulge seemed to move behind the first. A small white bulge that seemed to be following the big one.

Law lowered the bow instantly and grabbed the god's arm, still kneeling beside him with the strange aura.

"Wait," Law stopped him.

"Why?" the other's voice had also changed, now he didn't even look human, without the slightest emotion, as if the god had lost himself in search for blood and slaughter.

"You can not kill it," Law insisted, swallowing the uneasiness.

"Why not?" The god did not even seem to be paying attention to him, his mind only focused on his prey. Law felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as if a storm was coming.

"She has a cub," Law said.

"...So what?"

Law blinked confused, but beginning to really worry. So what?! Perhaps the other did not know the rules. Every hunter knew that you should never kill the mothers or the cubs. It was the way to keep the balance. To make sure that there would be more prey in the future and that the species could survive. Besides doing this would be bad. Law didn't know why but his instinct told him that killing these animals would be wrong.

"The baby will not survive without the mother"

"Let's kill it along with her then" the god answered, taking Law's hand from his arm and pushing him to the floor without the least delicacy.

The thunder began to rumble in the distance.

The god raised a hand to where the creatures were. Law felt his whole body tensing at the energy that suddenly flooded the air, the raw power, the horrible situation. The light broke the sky announcing the end of two innocent lives. Without thinking, Law kicked the other behind the knees causing him to fall to the ground losing balance and aim.

Lightning broke the stillness, blinding Law. The thunder made the earth rumble under their bodies.

When Law opened his eyes again, he realized that the lightning had fallen just above them, over the stupid god. Law wished for a moment that it had killed him. Turning his head, Law watched the two bears run away, fleeing from them. Safe. Law let out the air he didn't know he had been holding, and turned heatedly to the god.

Anger was a too beautiful word to describe the fury he felt.

Rising from the ground, Law faced the god. The redhead was also sitting in the snow watching the animals rushing away, anger glowing in his eyes along with unwelcome surprise and confusion, but Law didn't notice it, Law noticed the abstract scars that furrowed the other's skin, like windings of roots that electricity had left as it passed through his skin.

Not trusting himself and the fury he felt, that made him want to shout at the other for his stupidity, Law sat down onto the god, making him fall back completely on the snow. Then he took a handful of cold snow and pressed it against the first warped scar he saw on the other's face that was starting to turn red.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hissed the god then, glaring at him now with those intense yellow eyes laden with power.

"Heal you" Law said through his teeth, taking another handful of snow and pressing it against the other's neck this time trying to stop the burning.

"I'm a god, you imbecile! I do not need to be cured!" Kidd continued, trying to get rid of him "Now, because of you, we have lost…"

Law could not help it. Catching the other by the neck, he slammed him back onto the floor and shouted at his face. "Shut up!" Then he took another handful of snow and put it back on the scars without being able to murmur anything else because of the rage that flooded him.

Because of the two innocent lives the other had almost taken.

The other suddenly lay still staring at him with his eyes wide open as if he simply couldn't believe Law had shouted at him. Yet his eyes slowly turned golden, without that buzzing dangerous aura or the immense power of before. Normal.

Law ignored him and continued to attend to his wounds, focusing on manual labor and trying to contain his anger. Focusing on calming with the snow the burns caused by electricity. However, before his eyes, Law saw them disappear, the red and the interwound marks giving way to the pale and soft skin of the god.

Law brushed his fingers against the smooth skin of the other's cheek where one of the hideous scars had been. The skin beneath his fingers was smooth, without the slightest mark that could give away what happened.

"Why are you doing this?" The other asked, his voice confused but still quiet beneath him.

Law looked up to see a face of utter mistrust of the god. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, as if he couldn't trust Law. As if Law's care was only doing him more harm.

That for some reason annoyed Law even more.

No longer restraining himself, Law went to shout at the other, to beat him if it was necessary until he found his brain again, but then a warm sensation seemed to caress his skin from above.

Lifting his eyes confused and slightly blinded, Law looked up at the sky, just to meet with a huge glowing sphere. High and intense in the middle of an incredibly blue sky, warming his body and causing an euphoria that Law did not understand.

The sun.

For a moment the brunette only blinked in confusion at the bright light. For a little silent moment he wanted to curl under it and cry in a mix of happiness and sadness.

So that was the sun, what the elders of the village talked about so much. This was what he was fighting for, and why he had come to this world. Law felt his breath stopping as he realized that that big, warm, bright sphere that seemed to flood him with joy was something worth fighting and risking his life for. In an instant Law realized that his journey had not been in vain, and that his life had not been lost for something insignificant.

His sacrifice had been for something beautiful. Worthy.

He was a hero, not an assassin.

Looking at the god who was still looking at him suspiciously, now even more with the face of surprise and admiration that Law was surely putting, Law had to ask.

"Is that ... the sun?" He said, pointing to the bright light in the sky. He needed confirmation. He needed to know his life has worthed it.

The other seemed startled by his question. His golden eyes fixed on Law then charged to an intensity that left the raven breathless for a moment, the god's pale fingers seemed also to move as if they wanted to touch him, grab him, _hug him_.

The other seemed to look at him as if Law was from another world, as if he could not believe what lay ahead, but at the same time he wanted to protect and embrace him.

Law, unable to stand that look. With too many emotions in his body, he looked again at the warm and bright light without needing further confirmation.

"It's beautiful," he whispered as he closed his eyes trying to absorb the heat of the sun, the light, the peace that it inspired.

That's why he did not see the god beneath him blush. He did not see the panic in his eyes or how he frowned suddenly. He only felt the other's hands push him away as if he was suddenly burned by Law. Then, without a word, he rose and began to stride towards the cliffs and the palace under the ice with long, angry steps.

Quitting to hunt anything to eat.

Law ignored him. Rising from the floor where the other had pushed him, Law followed him silently, unable to take his eyes off the wide, pure sky above his head.

...oOo...

Doflamingo watched the rain stop and he could only clench his fists. So he had succeeded, the prodigy boy, the village boy who had done the impossible again.

Frustrated, Doflamingo hit the parchment-covered table where he had been studying his plans for the future just minutes before the shouts of surprise and joy reached his room.

Inverness Castle was one of the largest in Scotland -after Stirling and some more of the English royalty as Balmoral- yet Inverness was the first stronghold of the north. The real one. Doflamingo, as master and lord of that castle must feel powerful, imposing, the most powerful of the nobles of the country.

However, the shouts in the streets of the city prevented him from reaching that feeling. The boy, Law, the pariah he'd been torturing since he'd been born, since the fateful day that Doflamingo had risen to the throne, had once again made him look ridiculous.

No matter what he did, no matter what Doflamingo ordered him to do, the boy was always victorious. When the elders had proposed to send someone to the kingdom of the gods to stop the rain Doflamingo had seen his victory. Sending the boy to that suicide mission had been too easy, the boy would have to go through the northern swamp, and if he still managed to survive he would have to find a door that did not exist and reach a world where no one had ever returned from.

Doflamingo had thought that would be the perfect way to get rid of the young man. But again the boy had laughed in his face. Not only had he reached the other world, but he had stopped a rain that had lasted for half a century.

The shouts of joy in the streets made Doflamingo want to vomit. The people had always worshiped Law, they had always considered him one of their own, a peasant abused by the nobility. After this, the dark man would become a hero, their hero, their leader.

Doflamingo could not allow it. Trafalgar Law was the only one who could doubt his reign, the prophecy had been clear, the gods had whispered it to Doflamingo the day it had begun.

Law must die. One way or another. It was the only way Doflamingo could remain king. He was a king. He was the chosen one, the person to whom the gods spoke, his bloodline carried the blood of Arthur the great. He had been trained to fill the position!

Turning his back to the cheers in the street, in the bright sunshine of the world, Doflamingo took one of the golden glasses on one of the tables in his study and filled it with strong whiskey from the region. He needed to calm down. His intelligence was what had saved him many times and was the only thing that could do it now. He could not let the rage consume him.

"Vergo" he shouted, calling his second-in-command and feeling his voice still hoarse from the hard alcohol, "call the assembly of elders," he commanded when the man looked at him from the door with a military salute.

It was time to take the problem in his own hands. If the world and destiny did not want Law to die Doflamingo should do it with his own hands.

Convincing the assembly of elders of his plans would take days, it would also cost money to bribe some of them to speed things up. But if Law had taken two months to stop the rain, it would also take him at least two months to return.

This was plenty of time to organize his plans. It was plenty of time to talk to _her_.

Turning around again and looking at the stone window that overlooked the huge river that passed through the city, Doflamingo observed his dear citizens with hatred. It was time to stop being silly. Now was the time to show the claws.


	5. A Hidden Secret Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'm deeply sorry for taking so long to update, but I'm hella busy, in a new city and trying to get used to the mess here. Also my dear beta is out kicking rugby teams with pasion so yeah, it's complicated. In any case I hope you like this one, I'm pretty happy with how the things had ended up. As always thanks a lot for the coment's the fan arts (you can see them in my page in tumblr since I wan't post links here), and the support, love you my perverts.

_On_ e _for sorrow, two for mirth_  
 _Three for a funeral, four for birth_  
 _Five for heaven, six for hell_  
 _Seven for a secret that must never be tell._  
 _-Nurse rhyme from Law's village_

 

Law walked through the corridors with their huge walls of the castle and home of Roronoa Zoro, god of the sea. Despite having spent several days already living in the palace, Law was still discovering new mysteries and new rooms to explore. The huge, silent glass corridors seemed to extend in all directions under the sea, empty, naked, and without the slightest decoration. Cold and silent like the man they belonged to.

Despite the immensity of the place and not knowing its twists and dangers, Law had a fixed course today, and that was in the opposite direction to where the red-haired god was.

The hunter simply couldn't stand another minute with the man, he was an idiot, reckless, empathyless, and worshiped the blood on his hands and the suffering of others. His only pleasure in life seemed to be to anger and kill things. They had been screaming at each other ever since Law had come to this world, yesterday he had been about to kill an innocent life without remorse, he did not want to stop the rain that was killing hundreds ... Law had not managed to flee the monster in his own world to end up falling in another one's hands.

However, there were certain aspects of the redhead that did not quite match the behavior of the monster Law remembered from his own world. Kidd had saved his life the first day. He had offered him shelter, food, clothes. The monster in his world would have never done something like that. Because of this Law felt confused, there was something, an instinct, that would not let him hate the bloodthirsty redhead, there was something that screamed that inside, deep inside the other, there was something worthwhile.

But Law was tired of trying to find what it was. Especially when Kidd himself did not even try to do it himself and seemed to revel in the suffering of others. So Law decided to ignore him, tried to get away from the man and tried to prepare for when the door would open and he would have to return to his world. With the real monster. With empty hands.

Without realizing where his steps were taking him, Law began to delve deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine palace, through transparent glass corridors immersed in bright green algae. Further and further down. Until finally the corridors and recesses ended in what seemed to be the bottom and heart of that strange sea of shiny creatures and crystals. Until Law only found an old door, of well-known chestnut wood, with splinters and scratches and runes.

Law watched it, suddenly awakening from his trance and his thoughts. He did not even know where he was, or how to get back to where he had come from, but the silence and darkness in that place were absolute. Disturbing. Dead.

Law doubted for a moment.

This place looked different from the other parts of the castle. The wall seemed to have been carved with fury, and the rough surface gave the place an even wilder look. There were no fish on the other side of the glass, no plants or anything. Just the door. Like a terrible, dark secret.

Maybe Law should not be there, maybe he should turn around and leave, but again there was his curiosity. That part of his mind that sought knowledge, the power it gave him and the sense of security he gained. Knowledge had long since become his way of survival, and old habits often take time to die.

So Law pushed the strange door slightly open. The first one in the whole castle that did not seem to be made out of glass or some transparent material like the amber of his room or the obsidian of Kidd. It was vulgar, cracked, and a human-made wood, to plain for such a fancy place.

Law opened the heavy door even further and crossed to the other side. The biting cold from the outside world and the pure white snow greeted him. The small room seemed to be covered with a thick layer of ice, and the cold inside was so intense that Law felt his breath begin to form clouds of mist in front of his face, he felt his fingers numbing, his heat being stolen in the frozen air.

There were little blue candles in the room, candles that despite the painful cold burned merrily and gave the place a strange and almost magical look. There were furniture covered by the ice, becoming part of the ominous looking stalactites on the floor and shining with the glitter of silver and gold. It was an odd place. Disturbing. Not right.

But what surprised Law the most was the large bed with white sheets embroidered with silk and purple little flowers where a person seemed to sleep.

Slowly approaching the strange scene and the statue asleep in the bed, Law watched the man with curious and weary eyes. He was a tall, dark-haired man with the signs of age beginning to appear on his face, and a perfectly trimmed beard like one of the lofty nobles from Law's world. His skin was pale, tremendously pale, and small crystals of ice were beginning to appear on his skin giving it an almost fragile touch.

Law frowned even more without understanding the palace and that room. The man seemed to be dead, he did not breathe, nevertheless, he had a pulse under his skin, but simply no one could endure such a low temperature for so long. No one except perhaps the weather god, but this man was not the temperamental redhead whose only purpose in life seemed to be to fight against the world.

Law studied the scene again. The man was lying in the position of a deceased knight, the beautiful embroidered white cloak covered his legs, a large steel sword decorated with more jewels rested on top of it, matching the steel armor he seemed to carry. Everything was made like the burial of a king. Everything seemed perfectly taken care of, from the candles placed at different intervals on the walls, to the ice covering the place and creating stalactites, or the man's proud posture, it was as if someone came here every now and then to fix the place and take care of the sleeping knight.

"What are you doing here?" Asked a voice suddenly behind Law's back, interrupting the almost ritual silence of the room. A pissed off voice, a deadly serious one.

Law spun around, feeling his instinct screaming like never before, just to watch the god of green hair and owner of the castle standing at the door. Zoro. Only the figure in the doorway did not look like the kind and taciturn man Law had been talking to hours before, no, this was Sedna, the god who kept souls and prepared them for death, who had died drowning in the sea to resurface as its owner and lord. The power oozed from each of the man's pores, his eyes even seemed to take on a bright and dangerous green hue, like the seaweed at the deepest part of a lake.

The god seemed to have lost all control over himself and who he was, the rage too intense to contain. Now it was only power contained within an immortal body.

"... I'm sorry" Law began, knowing that he had done something that he shouldn't, something that was about to cost him his life "I got lost and then ... "

The other, however, just entered the room, and kept the door open behind him. A clear invitation to leave. His whole body seemed to tremble under the rage, under the unleashed power. The pressure in the room seemed to increase a thousand times until Law struggled to just take a breathe.

"Leave" hissed the other without looking into Law's eyes, only focusing on the footprints that Law had left on the ice floor, just breathing deeply as if trying to calm down.

"I'm sorry," Law repeated.

"Go!" Zoro shouted, as if he could not stand Law's presence in the place for another second. The room seemed to tremble and stagger around him, stalactites clinking, the ice cracking. The world seemed to tremble with it. Every drop of water, every creature of the sea seemed to shudder and hide under the fury of the Lord of the Sea.

Law simply ran to the exit. The instinct taking control of his body and telling him to run, to flee and away from something so immense that it was impossible for him to fight it. A familiar old anxiety began to seize his mind. Law felt his lungs close, his head felt dizzy, and he had to take several gulps of air before panic took control of his body.

"If I see you here again, I'll kill you," Zoro said, closing the door behind him with a bang. He said it with a low tone of voice, but so charged with fury and contempt that curiously cleared the mind of the scared mortal.

The panic, helplessness, and frustration at being on the verge of death suddenly vanished. Law remembered who he was, the thousands of similar situations he had gone through and how he had survived each of them. He had forgotten everything that had happened when he had arrived, the luxuries of the castle, the magic that surrounded it, the almost acceptance by the gods had distracted him. But now he remembered his mission, he regained the instinct that had helped him survive and closed himself to everything else. Law had always been the lone wolf. No friends, no family, no ties. With nothing that could hurt him when it was lost or it betrayed him. Because friendship did not exist, love and affection were just a lie.

As the door closed behind him, Law regained his path and his concentration. No games, no pity, no new friendships, or lowering his guard for feeling more secure and appreciated than in his entire life. Law had come to this world to save his life, nothing more, nothing less. When he achieved his goal he would return to his world, he would survive and would eventually forget everything.

This was just another test, another obstacle, and Law could do it and prove to the whole universe that he deserved a place in this world like everyone else.

...oOo…

Zoro knew he had lost his temper. Something that had not happened for centuries, something he'd even forgotten he could do. But despite the happiness of being able to feel something again, something so intense, even if it was rage, had not left him the satisfaction he had believed. Because, despite having recovered something that he had thought he would never recover, his fury had frightened the mortal.

Zoro had felt it in his eyes, in his change of his posture, the tightness of his lips, his attitude. Law had taken a big important step back. The mortal who had made Kidd react, the one who had made the sun shine again in the sky, had closed himself off again, and Zoro was becoming more and more certain that if they lost Law, they would also lose Kidd forever.

The green haired man had finally seen his friend react the previous day. The possessive attitude towards the boy, how Kidd always tried to get the mortal's attention even if achieved by arguing, and the scared confusion and blush on his face when they had both returned together from the "hunt". Zoro understood what was happening. Zoro saw the imperceptible changes in his friend and what this all meant.

Their race was ancient, millenary, the life of each one of them extended by generations along the time of a human life. So much longevity, so much wisdom and knowledge had also a great power behind it. Each and every one of the gods could annihilate the lives of thousands of mortals with a simple gesture, their power was so immense that they had needed to create another world apart from the mortals so that both could live together without one of them perishing or enslaved. Many among the gods considered such longevity and power an advantage, the difference that made them better, superior, immortal, arrogant.

But not Zoro.

The green haired god had understood early on the problem that such a long and powerful life meant. When you have seen everything, when nothing can surprise you anymore, emotions cease, fading away until they slowly disappear, becoming less intense, the terror becomes a simple feeling of insecurity, the fascination and most passionate love a mere infatuation. Until you simply stop feeling. Until you only live in a world of muted gray tones. The first god to die was a hard blow to their race, especially when that god had simply annihilated himself out of curiosity about what would be on the other side.

_Without fear, without a warning instinct, Zoro's race was capable of killing itself._

That had been the beginning, eons ago, the warning scream that had seemed to ring like a bell reaching every corner of their world, but it had been Zoro who had then realized the real problem his race was facing. Because without feelings and emotions, what difference was there between good and evil? What makes you stop when you torture someone if you can't feel remorse? What makes you help someone else if not gratitude and satisfaction? Zoro just had needed to look at his brothers and sisters to find his answer.

Their race was slowly turning cruel, twisted, seeking the most intense emotions they could find, even if they came from a rotten class. Orgies, massacres, torture, his race had degenerated slowly, looking for something more without knowing why they were losing. Zoro realized then what he was doing, what he was becoming along with the rest of them, but instead of continuing to fall into the void, the green haired man had decided to isolate himself, flee and not hurt anyone.

Then he had found him.

Zoro stared at the mortal, sleeping, frozen for eternity in the deepest room of his world. He had changed everything, he had shown Zoro that the gods were not as powerful as they believed, that they needed mortals who lived briefly but intensely. They were their salvation.

However, now, Zoro might have destroyed the only chance that Kidd, his only and greatest friend, could have had to go back to being who he had been eons ago, the proud powerful warrior. He might have destroyed Kidd's voice, a second voice that would have risen along his, louder, so maybe this time Robin would have listened and solved the problem.

Zoro was a prince among those of his race, a god of second generation, only surpassed in power and prestige by their greater and powerful sovereign. But after the incident, all his benefits, all his titles and all his power had been of no avail. Since then Zoro had become a pariah, a hermit, he was still a prince, the blood was the blood, as a second-generation god would always be respected and worshiped by those of lower class, but he was to be kept away from the court and its intrigues.

Kidd however was different, he belonged to the third, and although his conduct was not fully accepted in court, he still had access to it, he would be well received, he would be listened to, maybe he would be able to...

Zoro frowned, looking again at the face of his one and tragic love, frozen for eternity in the depths of his palace. Maybe _that_ was a bad idea. The first time had not gone well, why would they change for the better? Why would they reach another conclusion? No, he would not allow Kidd to suffer the same as he had. Kidd was different from the rest, Kidd was like him, and this time the story would have a happy ending. Zoro would keep the secret. Just as he hid this secret room from his queen and from the rest of the world.

Turning around, Zoro left the room, realizing that too many hours had passed. Hours in which the mortal had not left the room with the amber door, hours in which the sun had traveled the sky as for eons it had not, hours that Zoro had needed to be able to calm himself as he had forgotten to do.

This hidden part of his life, this secret room was a weak point, his _only_ weakness, but even so he was a warrior, he must have controlled his temper and redirected his rage. After all, the mortal had not known better, he had not been able to avoid the mistake.

So Zoro decided he owed an apology. Strolling through his palace and traveling between the cold streams on the other side of the glass, Zoro rose among bubbles and headed to the boy's room until he materialized in front of his amber door in mere minutes.

With two blunt fingers he knocked on the door.

The mortal opened it in an instant with a piercing squeak from the hinges that filled the intense silence of the narrow corridor.

Zoro frowned.

Something was terribly wrong.

The raven had always had a sheltered air, he was smiling, he was joking, but he always seemed to do it as if it was a facade, a way of protecting himself. Zoro had at first wondered why, why should a mortal guard his emotions? Weren't they the free ones who could sleep without the fear of being stabbed in the back by the lower-class? Why didn't Law seem to trust anyone?

Now, however, Zoro realized that that behaviour was nothing compared to what the boy was doing now. The boy's eyes were so cold, so closed off, they almost seemed to compete with Zoro's. With a millennial god. The sea god had crossed a line, a line far more important than he had believed.

"I came to apologize," Zoro began anyway, he knew the mortals, maybe he could fix it, their emotions changed like the tides in his world "I shouldn't have threatened you and …"

"It does not matter." Replied the mortal, his tone without the slightest emotion, so frozen, so empty that Zoro couldn't help but remember the worst cases of his own race. The wicked ones, the monsters of the stories. A chill ran down his spine. _What had he done?_ However, before he could say anything, the boy continued "You are a god, I am a mere mortal, you can do whatever you wish to my unworthy being, it is beyond my place to say anything to your highness"

Zoro frowned. The boy sounded uncaring, accustomed, his phrases ringed empty, as if he had repeated it thousand times. Educated, respectful, without the slightest inflection that could provoke anger. Just perfect for an arrogant king, or a proud man, but not for Zoro. Zoro felt the wrongness in it, the void. What kind of life had Law lived to learn how to use and pronounce such phrases?

"That's not true, I…"

"I apologize to have angered your highness or to have caused the slightest displeasure. I swear over my name and life that it will not happen again. When the door opens I will quickly return to my own naughty world and cease to cause you trouble. You will not have to see my unworthy again"

And without further ado, the boy closed the door delicately, lovingly, like the wind turning a leaf, making the silence in the corridor return more empty than ever. He closed the door as if Zoro meant nothing in his little ugly world, as if he was just another stranger he had needed to say goodbye before securing his home from the dark night.

The green haired god frowned even more as he realized that this might be a bigger problem than he had thought. The mortal could not return to his world, not like this, dead, without life, after having seen and felt the worst part of the gods' world, they had to solve it, Kidd had to...

Turning around with clenched fists, Zoro walked back and forth between the passages of his castle looking for his friend this time. Maybe between the two they could solve the problem. Zoro knew that Kidd, like the rest of the gods, despised mortals, but after the last incidents and changes in the climate in recent days, Zoro hoped that his friend would have changed his mind.

...oOo...

Kidd felt confused, something new to him. A god did not feel confused, he always knew what he was doing, what he should do and how to do it. But in the last few days his life seemed to have taken a big turn, bigger than it had ever done, and for a reason that, a few days ago, would have made him laugh: a mortal.

Kidd remembered the incident of the previous day, the boy stopping him, the anger, him marveling at the sun... The boy seemed to cover more emotions in a day than any god would in a year and Kidd had found out he liked to see them all, but what had confused him wasn't the mortal himself and the interesting flics of emotions over his elegant face, but his own reaction to it all.

When the boy had seen the sun, had marveled and had smiled, Kidd had felt the heat and a strange sense of pride filling his chest. In an overwhelming way. For a moment he hadn't been able to breathe. For a moment he had felt his face flush beneath the boy's praises and wonder. For a moment he had only been able to observe the boy under the light of the powerful sun as if he was what Kidd had waited for all his life.

 _But that was impossible, no, not with a mortal_.

He had been repeating that phrase for the whole day and night. Kidd knew that denial of the problem would get him nowhere, he knew he was simply fooling himself, but he could not recognize it. His pride and the impossibility of having a relationship with a mortal prevented him, he would suffer, the boy would suffer, there would only be drama and unhappiness. He was better alone.

So Kidd had just sulked and locked himself in his room ignoring the world like an angry teenager. But then, to add to all his problems, Zoro had entered his room like a summer storm a few moments ago, pulling him out of his gloom.

What his friend had told him then had made him worry, mock the mortal who could not even stand an angry god, and finally worry again. Kidd had set out then to ignore the problem again, let the boy sulk, let him go back to his world without any gentle words and resentment in his heart for them. It was better if the boy hated them, he would be safe, he won't complicate things for Kidd even more. Kidd would be able to refuse his feeling towards him. But the anxiety that he could perceive in his quiet stoic friend and the strange anxiety that arose inside him at the same time, stopped him.

So Kidd, _sacrificing himself for the common good_ , had gone to talk to the mortal.

In front of the pure amber door of the boy's room, Kidd felt his nerves rise like a teenager waiting to see the object of his desires. He remembered the boy's fascinated eyes from the day before and he found himself hesitating, wondering if perhaps he should have left the sword and the dagger he carried in the room, so as not to frighten the mortal even more, Kidd even observed himself combing his hair in a gesture of nervousness. What would the boy think of him now after what he had almost done yesterday? The lost control over his powers that had numbed his mind and almost provoked the dead of innocent lives? Would the mortal want to talk to him?

And that was the drop that overflowed the glass.

Kidd kicked himself. HE WAS A GOD! No, he did not fall in love, let alone with a mortal. Kidd had always lived alone, had remained alone, and had been perfectly fine alone. He would never have a partner. Much less a human who had been annoying since he had arrived, one who was too thin, too sarcastic, and had gray eyes like dirty water. Just no. They were better enemies than friends. His stupid feelings could go where they had come from because Kidd did not need them.

Still, he knocked on the door. Still, he felt his pulse startle as he heard footsteps on the other side, the door opening, his breath catching in his lungs when the boy received him without a shirt and sweaty after exercising or doing only god knows what.

Kidd's mind just stopped working and he could only feel, memorize, wonder, and _shiver._

Law's gray eyes normally looked as gray as the storm that Kidd had unleashed for centuries in both their worlds, yesterday under the sun, they had seemed to shine, like fine expensive silver, but now those eyes, for the first time, looked at him cold, without hatred, without admiration, without anything. They were like a metal barrier that enclosed the boy inside, like a blade, deadly, cold and dangerous.

Kidd felt a strange fury seize him when he saw those empty dark eyes, the barrier, the closeness.

"We have to talk," he said without giving the boy the slightest chance. With something telling him that the boy wasn't fine, and that he needed to solve it if he wanted to see the boy's fascinated eyes like the previous evening, shining in the sun, watching him with pleasure and awe.

"No thanks", replied the boy easily. Before closing the door in front of his nose and leaving him where he was. Outside. In the cold silent hallway of his friend's house. _Alone._

With a uproaring fury that Kidd had never felt, Kidd slammed on the amber door with a fist full of power he didn't remember having called. Thunder sparkled. The walls vibrated. The strange amber glass cracked and fractured as a house of cards, falling to the ground in large orange pieces the size of his head.

Kidd knew that Zoro was going to kill him for breaking his palace, for breaking a huge door of an incalculable material. Kidd knew he had lost control, that his actions could only scare the mortal even more, that he was doing the opposite of what he had set out to do. He was implicating himself with the mortal, caring, helping, bonding, seeking a way out of his perfect solitude.

But the rage within himself roared with satisfaction at seeing the amber broken at his feet. The anger only shouted at him to continue, to destroy all the barriers that stood between the boy and him, both the physical and the one he saw in the eyes of a boy. That rage only screamed a single thing until Kidd could hear nothing else.

_'Mine'._


	6. Tantrum

> "There are three things all wise men fear:
> 
> the sea in storm, a night with no moon,
> 
> and the anger of a gentle man"
> 
> -Saying in the Inverness Castle

Kidd walked into the small room feeling something within him change forever. A part that suddenly realized what he really wanted -not power, not respect or the beloved freedom- but a much simpler thing, a thing that a simple word has clearly summarized. "Mine" He had said it carelessly, without even realizing it, but his whole body and his whole being seemed to agree with it. The human was his. It didn't matter if he was mortal, if the man himself didn't want to accept it, if the whole world and the universe was against it. That was his truth, he was a god, and therefore that truth was absolute.

Kidd advanced through the small room to where the dark-haired man was, feeling more free and confident that ever. The man was looking at him now with clenched fists and his lips set in a tight line, his eyes were no longer cold, his posture no longer bored. He was beautifully angry. Good. Kidd was angry too, furious, raged, oppression clenched his throat, his blood pumped hot in veins making him want to scream, making him feel incredibly alive. At last. Satisfaction clouded his mind, not just because of his own new feelings, but because the wall that the brunet had raised around him was also falling.

It was still there. Big and cold. Hard and difficult to break. Causing a strange unease in the red-headed god, because the boy was his, and nothing and no one would come between them.

"I told you I do not wish to talk" said the boy then, crossing his arms in a protective manner that irritated Kidd, making the strange and hypnotic tattoos on his arms stretch like a panther waking up.

Kidd watched them, his eyes chasing the dark lines crossing the shoulders and chest of the man, realizing that there was something in those drawings, a roughness, marks under the ink. Kidd suddenly stopped short in horror realizing what he was seeing. Countless scars were hidden under the man's tattoos.

Dear lord, the boy was covered in them. From his arms, down his long hands, to his strong stomach and up to his chest. His whole body seemed to be covered in ink. Did they all hide scars? How did he get so many? Kidd felt a soaring fury and panic seize him. Suddenly, he wanted to approach the boy, demand an answer, and then slowly kill the asshole that has so much as touched him. Until he screamed for mercy, until he spat his guts out. Everyone had scars, everyone suffered some time, but the marks on the body of the man weren't normal, they spoke of an excessive and cruel violence against his person. It spoke of an obsession.

"Who cares what a mortal wish? I do want to talk" Kidd continued provoking him, ignoring the hurt he could feel in those scars, just seeing with glee as the facade of indifference that the other had clearly risen around his mind to protect it, seemed to break just for Kidd.

The mortal wanted the gods to be the bad ones? Kidd would show him how terrible they could be.

"Get out" the dark man hissed, pointing with a tattooed finger at the shattered door of the room.

"Make me," Kidd muttered, smirking, slightly amused at the murderous look Law gave him. The wall had been destroyed. Whatever happened next, Kidd considered this a victory, he could feel it was one.

The boy, however, oblivious to his feelings and to Kidd's thoughts, advanced towards him. Fury and violence screaming in each of his lean muscles. Kidd understood then that the mortal was willing to kick him out of the place if necessary. Something totally impossible and unnecessary in his opinion. He was a god, the other a mortal, there was no way he could win in a battle. But the dark-haired man had perhaps forgotten that detail over the fury Kidd could see in his eyes.

When the dark-haired man threw a punch to his jaw, Kidd found it too easy to dodge it, grabbing then the dark haired man by the waist, he gave him a light kiss in his temple before moving away out from the other's range of attack.

The look that the mortal gave him then made it very difficult for Kidd not to laugh. The face -a mix of horror, disgust and confusion- made all this fuss worth it, but also Kidd couldn't stop the ridiculous sense of hurt to arise. None of his lovers, and there had been many, had ever put on a face of horror.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Law hissed.

Kidd shrugged it away with a dangerous smile. The boy was his fucking problem. Since he had set foot in his world Kidd had done nothing but focus on him, think about him, get angry with him... and apparently develop some weird feelings for him. And now he was also getting those not-existing feelings hurt. Awesome.

However, seeing his lack of response and his wry attitude, something seemed to snap in the boy. His eyes seemed to suddenly turn cruel, to seek another new defense against him, to protect himself as if his life depended on it. The smug smile that Kidd had had disappeared from his face and he couldn't help frowning.

"You want to talk? Well, let's talk" hissed the mortal with the face of a murderer "Why do you lie? You can control the weather, I saw you do it the other day, why don't you want to stop the rain? Why do you let thousands of people die every day? Does it comfort you to see my race die? Are you a sadist and that's why you behave like that?"

Kidd felt each question like a punch. The boy was attacking his biggest problem. His only weakness. The thing he could do nothing about, but which was however killing millions. Kidd had had a hard time learning what his power was doing without his control, what a monster he was becoming. The other gods had also lost the control, but their powers have just disappeared, not turned into a deadly storm that had raged for centuries. He was the odd one. The atrocity. The murderer.

"Shut up. It's not your business. You don't understand…"

"Then explain it to me! Stop lying!" Law shouted. Throwing his arms in the air in a gesture of desperation, of fury, of pure uncensored hate.

Kidd had enough.

Suddenly approaching the mortal until their breasts almost touched, Kidd lifted a hand with inhuman speed and closed his fingers around the other's neck. Without squeezing, without doing the slightest damage, just letting him feel his hand in that weak spot. Possessive. Dominant. Dangerous.

"I am not lying, mortal" his voice sounded calm. Too calm. His eyes just stared into the grey ones, unmoving, letting the other see the power inside him, the threat he has always been "My power depends on my emotions, like that of all gods. I have not felt anything for centuries and it has been raining for centuries, but since you arrived… it has become even more fucking erratic" Kidd squeezed a bit the other's neck. A warning. To shut up. To leave that topic alone. The fury within him mingled with the helplessness, with new weak feelings, with the shame for what he was capable of doing.

The boy nonetheless looked at him with narrowed eyes. Not surrendering. Never giving up. Making Kidd's chest burn with rage. Because he had given up long ago.

"This is the worst excuse that I have ever..."

Kidd couldn't take it anymore. His mind was a chaos of emotions that he could no longer control. The boy was too close, their breaths mixing in an intoxicating way, the exotic grey eyes watching him with a slight intent that no one had directed at him for years. His skin felt smooth and soft under Kidd's fingers, his pulse as fast as Kidd's. He was warm, so warm and innocent.

Yet he was covered in deadly scars.

Kidd surrendered to his most simply instinct. He simply lowered his head the last few inches and caught the brunette's moving lips with his own silencing him. Proving that what he said was true, that things were different, that things had fucking changed since he had arrived, that things had started moving, that Kidd had stopped to be monster.

For a few seconds Kidd just remained motionless. His mind trying catch up with the torrent of sensations that suddenly ignited in his body. For a moment he just marbled at how soft and tender the other's lips were under his, at how the other's scent curled around him inviting and fearless, old metal and the soap the other used to bath, mundane but as deadly as Kidd himself. For a moment Kidd could only feel the other's body beneath him, his caught breath, his trembling lips, his pulse beating in a quick but relaxing tempo that put his mind at ease.

But then Kidd moved his mouth, a light touch, a slight caress, a light friction against the other's unmoving lips. His tongue licked, his pupils dilated, and his whole world seemed to break into a thousand pieces with the face of the mortal. It was just perfect. The taste of the other numbed his senses. He was warm, sweet, perfect. Grunting with approval, Kidd deepened the kiss even more as he felt his whole body burn, the blood pumping heavy and hot like melted caramel in his veins, until Kidd could feel a known place of his anatomy start to grow.

Kidd squeezed the boy against his body with a sudden need taking control of him, the hand on his neck squeezed now possessively, the other curled around his waist over the maddening tattoos, over the lean muscles that Kidd hadn't realized the other had until he had been able to see him beautifully naked.

Their bodies seemed to be made for this, mingling to perfection from lips to waist. Kidd felt the pulse of the other flutter under his fingers then, his breath panting for a moment in his mouth as if he could not respond to the intensity with which Kidd was licking his lips. But he couldn't stop, waiting for the other to respond, to open that smart mouth and let him in, Kidd bit those lush lips until they turned red, until he felt the other gasp under him, until one of the tattooed hands gasped one of his arms as in need of support.

Kidd contained a moan as he felt the other start to give, start to surrender. Law's body relaxing under his hands, his head angling, and his weight leaning on his to get even closer.

The feeling of victory he felt then was greater than anyone he had ever felt. When Law's lips began to move even so slowly, as if in doubt, when his mouth began to open as if willing to let him pass, to respond, to accept him, Kidd considered himself the luckiest man in the world.

However, he made a mistake.

Instead of giving him time to adjust, instead of encouraging and seducing him into this game, Kidd anxiously took what was not yet his. When his tongue licked into the other's mouth hungrily, when his hands went down to the other's bottom to press him even closer against his cock, Law tensed.

The next moment Kidd felt his arms empty, the boy pushing him himself away as if he was burned. Kidd looked at him confused without understanding what had happened, while Law glared at him with a hatred he had never seen, as if he had betrayed him, as if he had stuck a dagger in his heart.

Then the pain came. With an ease worthy of praise, Law stuck his knee into his swollen crotch. Kidd doubled over in pain with a strangled gasp, but Law had not finished with him and Kidd felt the boy's knee strike against his nose, feeling something break. Kidd was immortal. The wound would heal in a few seconds, maybe minutes. But that didn't mean it hurt less.

Finally, Law pushed him against one of the armchairs in the room causing Kidd to fall backward to the ground and almost ending up inside the fireplace. Which surely would have left him completely unconscious for a few hours and with some nasty burns.

Law left the room then. Without looking back. Without compassion. With the rage shining dark as his disturbing tattoos.

Laying on the floor barely breathing through the pain Kidd finally realized his mistake. The mistake he had made from the beginning. The boy was his, that truth was absolute, Kidd would not let anyone else put his hands on him, would not let anyone ever hurt him again, give him another of those disturbing scars. But Kidd didn't belong to the boy in return. The dark-haired boy didn't accept him, was not interested in what Kidd could offer him, in his protection, in his care, in his power, in the only things he could offer him and what he was capable of giving. The boy had rejected them all from the first moment. He was strong. He was smart. He didn't need that kind of power or protection by his side. Kidd was not needed.

The boy was his, but Kidd remained alone, and that, despite his wounds, his broken nose and his almost burned clothes, curiously was what hurt the most.

...oOo...

Law observed the room in front of him with an air of resigned acceptance. The room was destroyed. The pieces of amber from the door scattered on the floor, an armchair lay broken on a corner, ashes from the fireplace curled on the floor, and the bed was mess along his thrown away clothes. After the fight with the redhead, his room looked very similar to what was happening in Law's own mind: chaos.

A few hours ago, Zoro had realized the disaster they had created and had begun shouting at them as if they were unruly children, as if he suddenly didn't have any problem talking and showing his fury. "This is my house!" "Do you know how hard is to make a door like that?" The insults and threats had been varied and colorful, Law had even learned some new ones.

However, it had been clear that Law could no longer use the room, and according to a sulking Zoro there was no other free room where Law could sleep. Law had doubted it, the castle was big enough to have another three hundred rooms vacant, but one look at the man had silenced him quickly. At the end it had been decided that he would sleep in Kidd's room, a room that had enough space to hold the two beds. So Law needed to move. They will need to sleep together.

Law, back then, had not felt anything. After his fight with Kidd he had found himself in a strange state of calm and numbness. Shocked. But now, hours after the incident, Law began to start reacting and realizing the problem he really had.

He was lowering his guard, he was losing his objectivity, he was letting the redhead enter. And that was dangerous. Too dangerous. Trusting another person, letting him see who he really was, was something that Law could not afford, it was a lesson he had learned from a very young age.

Doflamingo had helped him understand it. The noble man had the whole city in the palm of his hands, he had the money and he had the power. And since Law was born, the man had seemed to hate him. Law didn't even understand why, he didn't understand how the blond nobleman had even known about his existence back then, he had been an orphan boy begging in the streets, like a lot of the other children of the city. Why him? Why so much hate?

When the first band of thugs had beaten him when he was barely ten years old by the orders of the Earl Law had been confused. When the merchants of the town had refused to give him food for more than a year, bribed by Doflamingo, Law had begun to see a pattern. When suddenly, his beloved childhood friend Vivi, had been captured and sold as a prostitute along with the other girls Law had met, Law hadn't had the slightest doubt. Doflamingo just wanted to kill him.

So Law had decided to take the problem in his own hands. In a few months and with the help of an old mercenary, Raleigh, he learned how to defend himself, with fists, swords or whatever he had at hand, until the thugs that came after him, could barely breathe when he finished with them, until none accepted the bags of money that Doflamingo offered, for fear of what Law would do for them. Years later, Law had learned to hunt with the help of Ussuff, one of the hunters of the palace, he had learned to move in the shadows of the forest, to stalk unseen, until his food practically seemed to jump happily to his plate.

But above all, Law learned to defend his mind, to hide his feelings, denying them until they practically didn't exist, until Doflamingo couldn't hurt him. Law learned to cut the bonds, until he was totally alone in the small city between the mountains, safe, free. That part had been the hardest part, one he still had trouble maintaining, seeing his friends suffering at the hands of the nobleman had not been easy, but there had been no other option, if he felt, if he let his pain be seen, Doflamingo would just torture them more.

Now, however, his calculated plan was failing, now, without Doflamingo tormenting him, Law had dropped his defenses without realizing it. And someone had entered.

Kidd had achieved what no one had even tried for years. Law was feeling something for the idiot, and it scared him. His instincts told him that he should not trust anyone, that he should not feel anything, but his feelings were not as easy to suppress as he remembered. Law did not trust the god, he was too unpredictable, too strange, one moment he was screaming at him, and the next he was kissing him as if his life depended on it.

Law felt his body burn and a familiar sensation travel down to his crotch just by remembering it. The kiss had been ... intense, overwhelming, the best that Law had ever received. The other had kissed him as if Law was the best food he had had the pleasure to taste, his huge, warm hands had felt perfect over his body, as if they belonged there, and his mouth ... Law had to contain a moan just remembering it. The other had feel perfect, his lips tense, powerfull as everything in the god, but incredibly delicate for him, as if he was holding back so as not to break him, Law had felt the other's desire, his need, but he had also felt the other's enormous control.

Law couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the other let go, if he broke that control, what would he do then? With that perfect and arrogant mouth? With those agile hands? Law could not help but wonder what it would be like to feel the other's powerful muscles under his fingers, grabbing into that bright red hair between cries of pleasure, what it would be to feel the other's mouth on his...

No! He couldn't. The god was too dangerous, a fire with which he couldn't play. He had already managed to penetrate his barriers, Law already felt a slight camaraderie with him, a strange fascination. The sleeping arrangement would alone complicate things further, separating the pleasure from love during sex was complicated enough, Law knew it from experience, he just couldn't let it happen.

It was better to do nothing, to ignore everything. Forget about how his own body had responded to a simple kiss, how for a moment Law had just wanted to forget everything and let himself be carried away too.

Because he couldn't. His mission was only one. The most important one of his life. Once he got back to his world after stopping the rain, the old man's assembly would reward him, and with that money Law would travel, go, far, far away where Doflamingo would have no influence. Where for the first time since he had been conscious he would be free.

This mission was his way of escape, it meant his freedom. He just could not fail. He could not trust the god. He could not get carried away.

Taking the heavy trunk where he had also hidden his sword, his bow, everything that made him who he was, Law pushed him through the glass corridor towards the black door where the domains of the god of weather began.

...oOo...

Enel looked at the beautiful blue sky above his head without believing what he was seeing. Not only had it stopped snowing, raining, but the sun had risen for the first time in over a thousand years, hight, proud, stronger and warmer than ever. It made the world different, the things sharper, clearer, the world almost looked happy, relieved to finally be able to warm up in the holy light.

Except for Enel, the god of thunder, a fourth-class god with no real power over the world. The mortals had worshiped him with fear, Zeus, Thor, his names had been many his pride wide, but in this world, in the one that mattered, things had always been different. In this world he was a no one, the child of the child of the child. A part of a huge family with powerful members, no mattered what he was capable for, what he did, he would always be a fourth class, a despised one.

But he had had a plan. Zoro and Kidd had been his target, a second and third god were different, there were only a handful of them, if Enel could kill them, if he could steal their positions things would change…or so he had thought.

The sun shining brightly could only mean one thing: Eustass Kidd had managed to regain his powers which meant he was currently the strongest of them all. The rest of the gods were in decline, losing their control over magic, but Kidd had fucking regained it!

Enel frowned, clenching his fists while a wicked smile spread over his face. Maybe this was what he had been waiting for.

Kidd had always been different for the rest, the rebel, the black ship. The other gods won't be happy when hearing this new, to knowing the outcast had recovered what they couldn't. Yeah, Enel could still defeat them, a whisper here, another there, adding the mortal to the equation and Eustass Kidd will be executed and Enel would easily take his position.

However, the mortal's problem still bugged him. Kidd had regained his power when the mortal had arrived. Not before. Not after. But just now. Enel felt his mind remember the old story of Roronoa Zoro. Was the phenomenon repeating itself? He couldn't be that lucky, could he?

The possibilities were many, but Enel had one thing clear. He couldn't wait anymore. Revenge had to be now or never. He had to whisper it all to mother.

Rising from his throne among black clouds filled with the thunder he controlled, Enel closed his eyes and threw his mind far, far away, to the center of their world, to their capital where she and the holy court lived, where no mortal eyes would survive the beauty and chaos of their world. To the holy castle of shattered darkness where she had made her home.

Enel had always feared her. Her power was immense, his temperament unpredictable, even trying to manipulate her was a suicide. She had been the first, she was the raw power, a being that could not be understood even by their own race. Some said she had created the world from the dark waters of the beginnings, other said she had nurtured humanity into what they were now so they could worship her. She was older than time, her mind so old that sometimes not even her children could understand her.

Talking with her was complicated. Only her closed and most trusted people could do it. Roronoa Zoro had been one of those. Before the incident. Today however, the politeness and eternal waiting to prove his worth was not going to be necessary, he, a fourth-class god will be accepted into the inner court because the news he carried with him were worrying enough for her to attend in person.

Arming himself with patience and hiding his greed and arrogance, Enel waited to feel the cold and cruel mind of one of the palace guards, those soulless fae soldiers she had created out of the darkness, touch his own and ask him to state his business.

Enel just smiled at him before stabbing his worthless being with one of his thunders. He was not going to be stopped until he reached her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanna tell you guys a story. Last month I was writing chapter 4 of this story, I felt so proud of that chapter, my beta even commented on it, I was pretty happy of the plot, the characters, I felt it was good and you guys would like it. So I posted it, and waited for a coment, and waited, and waited, and waited...and never got one. Now, now how do you guys think I felt?
> 
> So as a person who loves to hold into grudes and has a fic as a hostage I decided to make you feel as angsty as I did. How did it felt the month of waiting guys? Or how would you feel if I decided to erase the fic from this page since people don't even comment on it and won't really miss it?
> 
> Just think about it~


	7. Experiments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I thanks my dear beta, she hasn't been able to help me this time, but this chapter goes for you, relax and breathe for a bit you crazy rugby woman n3n  
> About the comments, thanks, it's been good to see you guys like what I write and are not reading it by accident.  
> Hope you like the drama.

 

" _There are stupid people, and then, there's you"_

_-Roronoa Zoro to Eustass Kidd after their first battle together._

 

During the following days, the climate continued to change slowly. The bright sun was quickly replaced by black clouds that once again covered the world with a looming darkness. There was no more ice or supernatural cold, neither the bright sun that had seemed to warm the soul for even a moment, there wasn't even the know eternal rain, but a melancholy grey landscape that almost depressed everyone who watched it. The fog covered the huge cliffs of dark rocks, the cold was sharp but not strong enough to froze your fingers, and the little plants that had started to grow in the new land revealed after the melting of the snow, seemed to shiver under the dark clouds waiting for the rain again.

Inside the impressive palace of the god of the sea, the mood was the same as on the outside. Kidd and Law had stopped speaking to each other since the fateful day they had kissed by fate. Both slept together in the same room in an intense and uncomfortable silence, both ate together between the transparent and dark walls, they trained and talked with Zoro when they crossed paths, but there were no more fights, no arguments, much less words between them.

After the terrible mistake Kidd had made in Law's room, the god of the storms and winds had fallen into a taciturn state, as grey as the sky outside. Hour after hour he furtively looked at the mortal and tortured himself mentally for having been an idiot and taken the other for granted. He barely ate, he could hardly sleep feeling the other lying next to him in the huge room, he barely did anything but think about how he could have avoided it all, so he wouldn't have to feel the horrible pain now.

Fuck, he almost looked depressed, like an angsty teenager after his first refusal.

That innocent thought finally woke him out of his self-absorption one morning several days later. All three of them were in the training room with the glass ceiling that reflected the grey sad sky above them. Zoro was training with Law with swords, their moves deadly and precise, the mortal was sweating while Zoro frowned in concentration. Them were both were good fighters, passionate, and smart, spoiling the other weak points while trying to hide their own.

Kidd however pretended to read a book, but his eyes keep stubbornly following the dark-haired human with a strange hunger in them. The lean muscles, the smart moves, the little curve of a hip. Again, an awkward silence flooded the place, a subtle tension that stretched between them both and that made even Zoro twitch with anxiety, but this time, Kidd realized what he was doing, what had become of him, and finally woke up from his numbness.

He was a god. _He just did not get depressed._

Yes, maybe no one had ever refused him in bed. Maybe it was the first time someone tried to kill him after a simple kiss, but Kidd was still a god. There were other mortals, thousands of them, thousands who would be willing to accept what the dark-haired man had rejected. Getting depressed over one mortal didn't make sense. _Mortals didn't mean anything_. It had just been an infatuation, after so long without feeling anything, he had only confused the feelings. That could be the only explanation. Kidd would get over it, find someone else, someone who will accept him, who will want him back.

Kidd tried to convince himself of it while his eyes moved to fall gain on the dark-haired man who keep dodging blows from Zoro, the general of the gods, one of their deadlier fighters, as if he had done it all his life. His body moving like a dark liquor, flowing around the green-haired god with elegance and lethal grace trying to strike.

Observing them together and feeling a stupid jealousy clutching his chest over their strange camaraderie, an idea occurred to Kidd. The perfect one to prove to himself that the infatuation was nothing but that. The perfect idea to also take his revenge on the mortal and show him his place.

When he got up from the velvety sofa where he had been passing the pages of a book without even knowing what it was about, the other two stopped fighting immediately and looked at him with a surprised face. As if the fact that Kidd had finally decided to do something surprised them. The raven frowned, tensed his jaw and looked away as if still angry at him. Zoro however only raised an uncaring eyebrow as if mocking him for the whole drama of the last days.

Kidd ignored them both. With a determined gaze and steady long steps, Kidd went in a straight line to where his dear asshole of a friend was still smirking at him. However, none of them read his intentions, no one understood the subtle language of his body, the dilated eyes, the slow controlled moved, the prey that didn't yet understood he was being hunted and no one did anything to stop him until it was simply too late.

Stopping in front of Zoro, Kidd took him by the waist and pressed him to his body in a sudden intimate grip. Zoro had always been slightly shorter than Kidd, the god of the sky having inherited all the raw power while Zoro looked leaner, controlled, smart - _like Law_ \- but it was just perfect for what Kidd had in mind. Grabbing with his remaining hand the jaw of a horrified Zoro who was beginning to realize what he was going to do, Kidd simply leaned over and kissed him not allowing him to escape.

A very different kind of silence seemed to fall over the glass room.

However, Kidd keep ignoring everything and concentrated only on the kiss, on Zoro's lips waiting under him paralyzed by the shock. Carefully, gently, Kidd kissed his friend as he had kissed Law a few days ago, slowly, desperately, as if his life depended on it, as if breaking such a contact would also break Kidd. To prove to himself that this had meant nothing, that he would feel for Zoro as he had felt for Law, that his mind would get lost in the teste and scent of the other, that his whole life would finally seem to make sense with just a little beautiful touch.

_That it will feel right. Destined. Waited._

When Zoro answered him with a little shy lick, Kidd jumped surprised, he had been too focused to even feel the other move.

However, Zoro knew how to kiss and soon, Kidd found himself devouring his friends mouth with a different kind of feeling in his mind. They had done this several times in the past and Kidd couldn't help to fall back into the well-known dance. A tongue stroked the other inciting. Lips searched and teeth bite seductively, provoking more, demanding more. Zoro moaned under him, his hands finally falling on Kidd's ass and grabbing him more firmly against his body, letting the redhead felt his desire too. And it all felt good, it felt nice, known, sexy.

But something seems to be missing.

A feeling, something that had been with Law but that didn't exist with Zoro. Kidd pressed more into the other's body looking for it, his hands caressed the naked stomach of the other under the sweated shirt tracing the old scar and taut muscles, making Zoro shiver. Kidd deepened the kiss even more, he bite, he sucked the other into his mouth...but still, he couldn't find it, Zoro's lips weren't as soft, there was no anger, no passion, there was no desperation, the soul crushing need to fell the other lost in pleasure under him. Zoro didn't complete him.

Suddenly a loud slam made the place reverberate and woke his mind from his search.

Turning away from his friend's eager mouth Kidd observed the room realizing that Law was gone. Without even picking up his own beloved sword, without having grab his shirt, without even saying anything. Kidd felt conflicted feeling twist inside him. Was he angry at seeing Kidd kiss another? Was he as jealous and mad as Kidd had wanted? As Kidd himself has been watching him talk and fight with Zoro but not even look at him?

_Had he hurt him?_

Kidd wanted to smile victoriously but for some strange reason a feeling of worry and panic prevented him for doing so. His little game had not gone as he had wanted. The kiss had been good, pretty good, but it had not been like with Law, it had not made him feel as if kissing Zoro was the most wonderful thing he could do for eternity.

Turning his face frowning, Kidd looked at Zoro as if searching for answers.

Only to find his friend looking at him with a homicidal face.

"What the fuck was that?!"

Kidd stepped two steps back instinctively, but still he was too slow to dodge the other's hammer punch to his jaw. Kidd fell on his ass on the floor feeling something in his skull break and the pain cloud his sight for a moment. He would heal, as all gods, he would look as perfect and imposing as ever, but the pain of the cracking bone still took his breath away. Kidd might be physically stronger than Zoro, but the other was still a first-generation god, his superior, his old brother.

So when Zoro advanced towards him with a razor-sharp sword in hand and his eyes shining with an intense green colour that Kidd had only seen when the old general entered battle, he tried not to piss himself. When Zoro landed on his chest without the slightest gentleness, Kidd felt two other ribs creak ominously, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of the edge of the other's sword in his neck. The ability of the god of the sea with any blade was legendary, Zoro was the best swordsman in their world, only surpassed by...

"What. The. Fucking. Hell. Eustass Kidd!?"

Kidd swallowed with care of not slitting his throat in two and raised his hands in sign of surrender. "I-I 'm, sorry" he said slowly, _calmingl_ y "I might have made a mistake".

Zoro raised an eyebrow, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"Oh, really?" Zoro whispered in the most dead tone Kidd had ever heard. Apparently, Kidd was not the only one recovering his emotions.

Zoro sighted and got up running a hand over his head with a frustrated face while looking at the door where the mortal had left. The jealousy returned in a blink of an eye. The feeling so strong that Kidd gasped surprised.

"Damn it Kidd" Exasperation on his voice his brother continued not knowing what was happening in his brother's mind "How can you be so stupid?"

Kidd frowned. At it all. At Zoro. At Law. At the whole situation. He knew it. Law slamming the door and the strange feeling of betrayal did nothing but scream it at him. Sitting on the floor while feeling his broken ribs crack again announcing their repair Kidd squeezed his eyes with his fingers. He was in love. With a mortal that hated him. And what had he done? The most stupid and worst thing he could. _Fuck it_. _What the hell had he been thinking?_ What if he had ended up destroying the last chance he had had with Law?

When he raise his head Zoro was looking at him, relaxed and looking not-murderous, but now with a frown of offense on his pretty face.

"Why hadn't you kissed me like that before?"

This time it was Kidd's turn to throw him one of the daggers that he always wore hidden among his clothes. Zoro just laughed, caught it in mid-air and threw it back at him. Kidd smirked back like a mad man. Zoro has always been good with blades. Kidd was even better with knives.

... oOo ...

Zoro watched his friend get out of the room rubbing his jaw and mumbling some colourful insults in his direction. He smiled, but it felt the moment the other closed the door, and a frown of concern and anxiousness replaced it darkly.

Something was not right, not only because of the clouds above their heads that seemed to cover the world of darkness and a wry feeling, nor because of the immense stupidity of his dear friend or how epically -and amusing- he was fucking everything up, but because of a hunch that he did not understand.

_Something was about to happen. Time was running out._

Zoro rubbed his eyes trying to get rid of the nervousness, of the need to do something, anything. It was as the calm moment before the storm. The silence. The darkness. The eerie feeling.

Kidd had to conquer his mortal now.

There was no second option, the universe had never been so generous as to give them another chance. If Kidd lost Law now, he would never find anyone like him again, never lift his curse, and he would die someday without even knowing true happiness. But instead of taking advantage of their time together, instead of making the mortal scream in a bed, instead of discovering what love really was, instead of spending time together trying to know each other, Kidd was wasting the time sulking and playing stupid games.

Gods had always been so arrogant. Zoro wanted to break another bone of his dear friend.

But Zoro could not do anything for them, he had already tried everything he could think off, for God's sake, he had even forced them to sleep together! But apparently the walls that Kidd was going to have to break down to reach Law were taller than the ones Zoro had needed to break down with his own lover. The feat was not going to be easy, the universe would not accept it if it was, that was the main problem.

_And still they were running out of time._

Zoro watched the sword in his hand, his fingers rough over the leather, his arms covered with old deadly scars that would have killed any other. But not him. In ancient times he had led armies, whole countries had fallen at his feet, and yet now he was nobody, now he was as lost as he had been before. Alone. Powerless. Everything depended on Kidd, the whole world seemed to depend on Kidd, although he didn't even know it.

And he was playing games _._ Raising his sword again, Zoro trained again ignoring the rage, the desire to strangle his stupid friend, the strange restlessness still filling his body.

...oOo…

She was absolute.

The worlds belonged to her, the mortal, immortal, and the next one. Everyone submitted and knelt to her. She had been the first, the beginning, the purest blood that had ever existed in all creation. She had shaped everything. Son after son, daughter after daughter, her pure beautiful offspring had dominated the existing creatures, had domesticated nature and had taken over a perfect world fashioned to her liking.

However, a darkness had arrived after her. The humans had come tainting the worlds with their weak red blood. She had downplayed them then, they were just another creation, a new race, a new wonder of her amazing power that hadn't exactly turned as she had desired.

But her children, unlike her, had been fascinated by their imperfections, by their wrongness, by their lack of power and strength. Without thinking her beloved ones had come down to the impure world the mortals lived, the dark, broken one they had chosen as home. The one full of sorrow, pain and death. But her children hadn't minded, and instead their had spent hours with them, many had even taken lovers among those beings who were so similar and so different from them, so corrupted and full of anger.

Robin just couldn't allow it to get worse after that. Generation after generation she saw her children, her wonders, mingle with humans, had seen her blood weakening, lose power, become more diluted and vulnerable and atrocities began to arise: half-blood, demigods, things so dark and evil he couldn't even bear their memories. Generation after generation the gods had lost their power until she hasn't been able to stand it. Until she had not been able to contemplate the shame of her race and had simply closed the door between the worlds using a little excuse of a prophecy.

Although she had not entirely managed to divide them completely, since not even she had such power. Yet she had managed to make everything go back to how it should be, her children in the world of the gods full of virtues and wonders and miracles she had created for them, and humans in the corrupt and dirty world they had shaped after them.

However, the solution had not gone as she had expected. Although the power had returned and her children had been born stronger than ever, more beautiful, more powerful, almost as her first five dears, something wasn't right. Their minds begun to lose their clarity, their actions had begun to turn cruel, as if their minds had broken with the separation of the universes, and they had even begun to kill each other.

That was when the wars had began. Brother against brother, generation against generation in a search of power not seen before. Robin had seen his family destroyed with a slight and strange resignation, their world change, the magnificent creation, crack under her children's power.

At first the horror had tormented her, she had mourned them all and those who killed had been cruelly punished. However, as the centuries passed, as her children had increased in multitude, as she forget their sweet faces as she created them, as they keep losing power no mattered what she did, yet the humans keep evolving and leaving the caves to build castles, to improve, to prospere, her attitude changed.

Suddenly she had seen it as a purge, strong blood annihilating the weak. A cleaning. Her blood trying to return to what it had been: strong. Her children demonstrating their love and affection to her and fighting to be by her side.

Of all of them, Zoro, her firstborn, her love, her child, had been the best.

But Robin no longer thought about him. His betrayal had been too great, his corruption too immense to even forgive him. For centuries Robin had refused to call him son, to accept him as part of her wonderful family.

He was dead to her.

So now, when one of the lesser gods, one of those she despised, one she had forgotten as she gave him life, approached her with news of his outcast son, Robin could not help but remember.

In her castle created from the darkest night, with stars of intense colour slightly illuminating the rooms between galaxies and constellations, Robin, queen and goddess of the night that had once flooded everything, listened to this unpleasant son.

Enel was a beautiful creature, like all her children. But his blood was so weak after mixing with humans for generations that Robin could not even tolerate looking at him. All the gods had an internal luminosity, as if their power shone through their skin, as a mark differentiating them from the humans, a gift that made them a miracle. However, Enel -a new-born god- showed no shine, no spark, announcing himself as a being without power, without the brightness that illuminated them all from within.

He was a pariah.

Robin wanted to vomit at the thought of this creature being slightly related to her.

"I bring disturbing news my lady" the creature still dared to say, "I think it is vital that you listen to me"

The other then began to tell a story not even waiting for her consent. A tale of betrayal, of two of his beloved sons, of two of his old prides, of the beast and the general. He spoke of secrets and palaces under the ocean, of doors she had considered millennia ago destroyed.

_Enel spoke of a little mortal who had dared to cross._

Night flooded the capital. Out of control, her power and rage spread through every corner of their world's capital plaguing everything with darkness and cold burning stars. Filling everything with an emptiness that lasted the second that Robin needed to regain control of her magic. Her children and everything in the city breathed scared, children cried, lovers hugged in fear, the world trembled from her furry.

Lifting a trembling hand covered with stars and precious stones, from a throne made of pale moonstone, Robin killed Enel for being even the carrier of such vile words.

However, the queen felt nothing for her dead son. No, her mind was too busy remembering the old forgotten prophecy, an old warning, the reason she had needed. The words of one of her dear daughters who had decided to abandon immortality to be with one of the horrifying humans, in an age before Robin had even lifted the walls between her worlds. Framun had been one of her favourites, the second-generation girl had always been able to see the future, and since she had been born her destiny had been to become the oracle, first of the gods and then of mortals.

Her death, when the time came, had been cried bitterly.

However, Robin didn't remember her lovely child, but the oracle who had looked at her with blank eyes and had spoken with a mix of ten thousand languages. A time when Robin had refused to believe her.

However, the fear of the words of a daughter who had never been wrong in her predictions, had made the queen act anyway. It was thanks to that prophecy that Robin had separated the two worlds, that she had broken the doors that connected them, that she had begun to hate humans and that she had made sure that he - _the end, the tragedy, the death-_ would die first.

That's why Enel's words must have ring false. It was impossible. It just must be a mistake. Her son trying to provoke her. Another of her children losing his reason as it did not stop happening, her race dying slowly without her being able to do anything, without understanding why.

Seated in her court of lights and stars, surrounded by her beloved children, adorned with suits of black velvet and dark blue satin, without the presence or corruption of mortals bothering her, the queen and sovereign of both worlds, however, doubted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, how's Robin? Did you expect BigMom? Muahaha, no darlings, Robin makes the evil queen even better than the crazy lady. She is also a greater enemy. Poor poor dear Enel, such fragile is life, he has disapeared as lighning. 
> 
> So what's gonna happen now? What happened to our dear Zoro to make him fall from grace? Will Law forgive Kidd for the kiss? Will Kidd develope a brain someday soon? Where is your deserved smut? What will Robin do? What happened to Doffy and his evil plots? Profecy? What profecy? 
> 
> Sleep well darlings~


	8. Victory and Defeat

" _And since we have no place to go_

_Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."_

_-Prayer dedicated to Kaliarte._

Law didn't understand what was happening to him. His head was a mess, his feelings were pounding against the barriers he had raised to contain them, and he was close to the breaking point. Everything was wrong, he had reached a point he had not reached before.

The kiss shouldn't have affected him, to see Kidd hugging someone else should have been indifferent to him, but again, the weather god seemed to have some way of getting under his skin and arouse feelings that, after all these years, shouldn't exist. The throbbing pain of betrayal was something Law already knew, and that he had felt a thousand times before in the mortal world, but oddly, this time was hurting more than it should.

_'Why? Why does this hurt more? Why with him?'_

Kidd had tried to use him, and he would have managed it if Law had not stopped him that time with that first kiss in the room. Now though, that Kidd had seen that his attempts with Law were not going to get anywhere, the redhead had simply decided to go back to his old lover. Easy, understandable, predictable. The better option for all parties involved. Law had known from the beginning that this would happen, that the other couldn't really feel anything for him, that Law was only a whim for him, a new toy, a mortal. Law had been prepared for the rejection. However, Law still had this horrible urge to scream, to break something or someone and ... to cry.

_'Pathetic'_

He had lowered his barriers without even realizing it. Again, his mind, eager for the slightest form of affection, had tricked him again. Law had thought he had seen something in Kidd, a minimal appreciation, something similar to love. When the redhead had looked depressed after Law's rejection of that mind-blowing kiss, Law had begun to feel akin to hope. What if the redhead was the one he had been waiting for? Someone who really loved him and cherished him?

Law had given Kidd time. He had even begun to think of an impossible future together. The mortal and the god. No more persecutions, no more fighting for his life, just him and the stupid god together under a sea of ice.

But that hope had once again been destroyed before it sprouted or Law could do anything to kill it himself. Law wanted to mentally beat himself for his stupidity. When would he ever learn? Why was he still looking for someone? Why did he keep lowering his barriers and trying to hold a smidge of hope? His fate had always been clear, Law had been born alone, and will die alone. It had always been like that and it would always be like that. No matter where he was, no matter with whom. It was better to be alone. Safer.

Sitting in the middle of the most beautiful room in the palace, Law lowered his last broken barriers and let the feelings he had been repressing for years invade him. Loneliness, sadness, pain and the new old betrayal. Slowly he remembered why he had chosen this path and why he was here.

The strange room seemed to whisper around him trying to take the pain away.

This room felt different from the rest. It wasn't as immense as the library or the training rooms, but not as small as the rooms where they slept. It was simply a small greenhouse under a perfect glass dome. Plants of all kinds, and from all over the world, climbed the transparent walls or submerged their branches in the small pond full of fish in the centre of the room. Oaks, millenary chestnuts and weeping willows crowded the place. Roses, poison ivy and wild flowers filled the space and tried to survive in the shadows of the trees.

It was a cozy place, private and with an ancient air about it, as if centuries had passed since the garden had been built and no one had had the time to take care of it. The steps leading to the pond were broken by the roots of a small willow, the small circle of grass under the wooden sofa where Law sat was overrun with wildflowers, and the trees and plants had grown so large, that Law could barely see the glass facing the immensity of the ocean.

Even so, that wild nature -that eagerness to live from the plants enclosed under the sea in a glass dome- reminded him of who he was, and how and why he had come here. Life was cruel, hard and evil, but Law would never surrender. Not now. Not so close to getting his freedom.

Not for Eustass Kidd.

And, as if invoked from hell, the redhead entered the room right then, passing under the stones of the door, and panting heavily as if he had been running and looking for him. His golden eyes were shining brightly under the shadows of the huge trees, his red hair eclipsed the red hue of the roses on the walls and his mere presence seemed to illuminate the room.

He was truly a god.

Law ignored him. Law just kept staring motionlessly at the strange coloured fish swimming among the pond's water lilies, chasing each other. His fingers were crisscrossed, his elbows on his knees. He looked as if nothing had happened.

"We have to talk" the redhead said when he got to his side next to the sofa. His voice firm, his gaze was determined, his whole body confident and intimidating. He looked in control of the situation, capable, a general about to enter a war.

Law felt the anger warm his veins. Law was on a tiny edge preparing to fall, but Kidd was perfectly fine after what he had done. And again, that phrase, ordering him as if Law was no one. Again, those eyes, as if he could intimidate him into submission. Again, that disgusting feeling of betrayal.

' _How could he have imagined this god cared for him? How stupid he could be?'_

Rising from the chair with an odd numbness around him, Law began to walk towards the exit without giving Kidd even a look. "There's nothing to talk about" he said slowly. Everything was crystal clear.

Kidd, however, seemed not to notice his rage or his foul mood, and, with two long strides, he stepped between him and the door. Preventing Law from escaping once again, and take a moment of solitude to accept this new betrayal and redo the broken walls.

"Law, listen to me" the redhead started with an imposing tone, taking him by the shoulders as if he pretended to force him to listen what he had to say. "I'm sorry, Zoro's…thing was a mistake, I was stupid and did..."

Law, however, didn't want to listen him, he didn't need to, because only with those simple words and with that small lines, the hope had resurfaced. 'What if he had been wrong? What if that kiss wasn't what he had believed? What if Kidd really...?'

"Shut up" Law hissed with anger. He wouldn't fall again, he wouldn't be such an idiot. Slapping the other's hands off his shoulders, Law pushed the other away and walked to the door between the delicate flowers at his feet.

Unfortunately, Kidd wasn't finished.

"Law, I'm sorry. I just kissed Zoro to prove myself that it won't be the same as with you, I..."

Law's mind stopped thinking and his whole body froze a few steps away from the door.

For a moment, all Law could see was the kissing scene. Kidd embracing another person. Kidd kissing another person. _As he had kissed him_. Kidd enjoying it. Without stopping. Without giving him a simple look, a simple explanation or apology. Letting someone else touch him. Making him groan in...

A rage, fury and a jealousy that he had never felt or thought himself capable of, invaded Law.

Spinning around, Law headed to where Kidd was. With madness in his eyes, with a storm in his head, Law reached up and grabbed the other by the neck. Without delicacy or affection. Only a possessive and crude act of control.

And then, without giving Kidd the slightest chance, without even understanding what he was doing Law pulled the other closer. Forcing him to lower his head and shorten the distance separating them.

Law clashed their mouths together in a wrathful kiss.

_'Mine'_

For a second, Kidd seemed shocked by the suddenness of the kiss. Paralyzed. Astonished. However, in the time Law took to painfully bite his lip and press his mouth even firmer against Kidd's, the redhead got himself together and quickly opened his mouth, giving him access without the slightest doubt.

A strange satisfaction invaded Law with that small concession. With the total confidence of the other in him. With the absolute capitulation to him within seconds. For a while, Law only enjoyed the kiss and took everything he wanted from the other. He bit Kidd's tongue until the other bleed. He sucked Kidd's tongue into his mouth aggressively, pressing him to fight back and answer. He felt Kidd grunting in pain under his mouth, he tasted the other's blood in his lips, but still, the redhead didn't separate from Law's mouth, as if he also needed this punishment.

Law felt delighted in touching the god and in feeling his pure power and strength under his control. Letting Law harm him as he needed to do. In a messed-up payback. Law blissfully tasted the other, a mixture of metal and whiskey. Wild but powerful. Kidd in his purest form. For a moment, he forgot his rage, fury and pain and just let himself get carried away by the pleasure and the feeling of the other's firm lips under the his, known and kind despite what Law was doing to him.

However, when the redhead's hands began to caress his waist in a gesture that Law also knew very well -in a gesture that he had seen Kidd used with Zoro, that had made the sea god tremble- Law's mind exploded again.

He wasn't the green haired man, he wouldn't let Kidd use him as he pleased or allow him to lie and laugh at him as if Law was no one. Instead Law would use him. No feelings, no love, just unattached sex. It would help him get over his stupid crush and let his pathetic brain understand that Kidd also just wanted sex and nothing else. There wasn't a soul bond, they were not destined and therefore, the stupid feeling of betrayal was useless.

Pushing the other's hands off his body, Law entwined one leg with Kidd's and pushed him hard, making the redhead stumble and fall backwards to the flowery ground.

"Law?" Kidd's eyes were a mixture of hope, pain and confusion. A pain that Law recognized as the one inside him.

He ignored it.

Taking off the sweater that the other had given him the first day over his head and throwing it to the ground without the slightest care, Law knelt half naked with his knees on either side of Kidd's waist. Dangerously he loomed over him.

The flowers and herbs around them shivered, bright and delicate, however, Law could only think of how bright and intense the other's hair was, how pale his skin looked over the strong muscles, and how intense and deadly his eyes were. The god was perfect. Handsome and lethal. As all gods should be. Unreachable for someone like Law, a mere unknown mortal. Yet the other wanted him, and only a fool would let an opportunity like this slip, right? If Kidd wanted to use him, why couldn't Law do it too? The other was untouchable, but Law had him under him. He could touch such a being, make him groan, break the stupid rules, fight against the world that kept torturing him.

He obeyed no one. He was free.

Leaning over the god, Law ran a hand through the red hair of the other, delighting in its softness and the contrast between the scarlet red and the tan of his own skin. It felt like silk. The most delicate and soft thing he had ever touched. Gripping it, Law pulled at it harshly, forcing the other to dip his head back and expose his throat.

His hungry mouth quickly fell over the pale skin to taste it with desire, almost with greed, making Kidd hold his breath for a moment as if waiting for another attack. Law smiled with his own personal smugness. He had done this just a few times in his life, the trust required for sex was something he couldn't afford, but thank god, he had always learned quickly how to use that feeling of uneasse, and for a moment he gloated in Kidd's stillness.

"Law? Wha-what has gotten…" the voice of the other sounded deliciously hoarse, that's why when Law sank his teeth in his neck without mercy and Kidd moaned loud and uncontained, it felt even more erotic "Law! Shit. Fuck."

Law bit harder, marking, letting the other for a moment feel the rage that lingered in him. Exciting him at the same time with the dangerous foreplay. This time, when the other's hands found his hips again, Kidd grabbed him without the slightest delicacy, without the falsehood that he had used with Zoro. This time they grabbed him tightly before lowering down Law's body to squeeze his ass hard.

Lust and pleasure. Nothing else. No falsehood, no promises, nothing, only one using the other.

Law licked one last time the other's sore neck, before rolling his hips lazily to squeeze his trapped erection to Kidd's, making them both gasp. Despite the anger, despite the pain of the situation, both of them were more than aroused. The sexual tension had been there from the start and the release now was coming sooner than they had expected.

"This is what you wanted from the beginning, isn't it?" Law whispered low against the other's ear, rubbing the other's nipples over the clothes and making him rise his hips to thrust against Law's ones. _'Mine'_ Law rubbed his painfully hard cock against the god's one, feeling his blood boil, feeling a need, pleasure and anger that he had never felt before "Well, take it, fuck me as you want, and then leave me alone. Stop lying to me Kidd, stop pretending. It is no longer necessary" He said with the sweetest voice he could muster.

Rising again over the redhead while continuing to rub their erections together with a continuous wave of his hips, Law took the shirt of the other in his hands and without the slightest difficulty tore it in two, exposing the other's perfect chest. Sculptured muscles, perfect unbroken skin, hard planes waiting for his to touch.

Kidd however rose again on his elbows and grabbed at his wrist, trying to stop him for admiring Kidd's chest. _For taking what was his_.

"Law you know that's not true, I would never do something like that"

Law stopped still. For a moment, he refused to look him in the eyes and see the truth in them. The sincerity and hope that the other seemed to give off. Because if he did, he would again fall into the lies and stupid hopes. Into the other games, he would let the other use him and throw him away broken.

Instead, Law just lowered his head slowly and caught the other's nipple between his teeth in another painful kiss. Kidd stilled beneath him, gasped beautifully, and for a moment he relaxed the hand grasping Law's wrist letting Law lick at him.

"Law, damn it, wait, we have to…" Law however, lowered the hand now free to Kidd's bulging crotch, and squeezed his steel hard cock in an attempt to make him shut up.

Kidd arched of the ground, his body for a moment exposing himself to Law's eyes in one of the most erotic moments of his life. The marks Law was leaving didn't seem to be disappearing, and contrasted hotly against the pale skin. The erection of the other felt heavy and full in his hand. His breathing was accelerated and his eyes fighting against the pleasure that Law, and only Law, was giving him.

"Law, for ..." but Law just pressed himself even harder against Kidd, letting the other feel his arousal too, how desperate he also was to be fucked. When he buried his face in the other's exposed neck, spreading kisses over the red marks, rewarding him for being such a good lover, for shutting up, Kidd grunted darkly.

Kidd's muscles again spasmed under him, and he lifted his hips following Law's hand over his erection, slowly losing his control. Law couldn't help but smile victoriously. He got him. Kidd was about to surrender.

However, before he could do anything else, a gush of wind flooded the room and suddenly Law found himself under the redhead, his hands immobilized by the other on both sides of his head and their faces a few millimetres away. There were no longer flowers that hid them, they lay ripped out around them, there wasn't even the slightest sound in the room or in the world, as if suddenly intimidated by Kidd's power, and when snow began to fall in the place, it seemed colder than ever.

"Stop," Kidd said calmly, with his eyes shining with rage and a strange desperation. Law could practically feel the control in the other, his muscles tense, his body totally motionless and alert despite the situation.

Law just smiled, the fake smile that made people angry, the one that had a touch of madness and evilness. Then, without shame, he opened his legs even more, allowing the other between them, and raised his hips in an obscene manner presenting himself to the other, provoking him, breaking his control.

"Fuck me"

"No"

Law wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream, he wanted to hit Kidd with something. The other also wanted this, Law saw the bulge in the other's pants, had been touching it just a moment ago, Kidd was completely ready and eager for this. Then why had he stopped? What the hell happened to him now?!

"This is what you've wanted from the beginning"

"Not this way"

Law tilted his head to the side as if mocking the redhead.

"There is not going to be another way"

A spark of pain crossed the golden eyes of the god, and something dark stirred inside Law because of it. Shame. Pain. Law turned away from him. It had been his imagination. It wasn't real. He wouldn't fall again. When the redhead rested his head on his bare chest in surrender, Law wanted to scream.

"Is this what you really want? Nothing else Law?"

"Yes. Nothing else."

"…Alright" releasing his immobilized hands, Kidd took him by the hips and, lifting them, he tore off his pants as if Law didn't wear his boots or belt over them. The material only tearing itself apart, obeying the wishes of the god, splitting in half to leave him bared to Kidd.

Law was totally naked then, under the other, in the middle of the field of dead flowers, as he had wanted, as it had been his goal. Yet, his victory tasted bitter. Kidd seemed unable to look him in the eyes now, as if what he was doing made him ashamed of himself.

Law lay motionless, just watching him, only focusing on the impassive face of the other, as if Law had finally been able to break him. When Kidd deposited a chaste kiss on his neck with delicacy, affection and a strange respect, Law felt a lump in his throat. When the other continued to kiss him, the pectorals, the stomach, the navel, the hips, with the same sensitivity, with the same reverence and slowness, Law had to close his eyes to contain the tears.

 _'It was all a lie. It was all a lie. Then why did it hurt so much?_ '

When the redhead kissed his rock-hard cock at last, he felt his whole body, his very mind tremble. As if Kidd was also breaking him with his kindness. Kidd licked his cock lightly at first. Little nibs, little strokes of his tongue over the hot sensitive flesh, letting him get used to his touch before taking him fully in his smart mouth. Law sighed with pleasure, with sadness, and his hands flew involuntarily to clutch the other's hair in desperation.

Kidd engulfed him with need, until Law felt completely buried in the other's eager wet mouth. He sucked at him enthusiastically, carefully, lovingly, but with an obsession that seemed to increase as Law moaned louder and louder. Kidd lowered and raised his head over his hardness as if he could do this forever, until Law could only whimper and squirm under the other, needing to feel more, needing the other in a way that he couldn't even understand.

Boldly, Law could only open his legs even more and offer himself to the other, he whined when Kidd caressed his legs carefully, tracing his tattoos, his scars, every tiny part of his body as if trying to memorize him. Soon Kidd began to prepare him with skilled fingers, coordinating them with his ready mouth over his dick, making him forget the pain with the greatest pleasure that anyone had ever given him, and making the experience completely different from what Law had ever done.

And throughout the process Law kept asking why.

Why was he doing this? Why was the other treating him so delicately? Why was he so eager? Had Law not given him permission to do whatever he wanted? Why was he still doing this? Why did he not use him as others had done, as he had done so many times? Sex was sex, there was no room for softness.

Law felt the other's fingers caressing him in the most intimate way, preparing him thoroughly with the help of his wonderful mouth. Until Law felt his body on the verge of orgasm every time the redhead rammed his fingers inside him, until every time he withdrew Law felt such an emptiness he wanted to cry.

"Law" Kidd's voice however sounded broken, emotionless, like the first time Law had seen him. Like a frozen statue. Kidd was focused only on giving him pleasure, nothing else, there was just nothing else remaining.

"Fuck me" he ordered, hating it all, hating everything now "Now! I...I need…" he needed the other inside, he needed the pleasure to numb his mind, the sex to stop the hurt he felt inside. He grabbed at the other's shoulders desperately, his legs curling around the other's hips pushing him against his body. Needing Kidd inside him despite knowing that finishing this could break them both.

Kidd kissed his forehead.

"Shhh, I'm here"

Kidd entered him with a sharp thrust. No doubt, no holding back. Not anymore. As Law has asked. Law felt him groan adobe him, with a roughened voice full of passion and heat, and he felt his own body melting under the god. His limbs relaxing at the known sensation of someone filling him, of the other body looming over him, seeking both their pleasures. When the other suddenly moved his hips sharply, hitting his weak spot on the first move, Law moaned with a strange feeling of rightness and wrongness filling him. This was meant to be, but he was doing it wrong.

_Law ignored it as he keep ignoring everything._

Law just focused on their connected bodies. On Kidd's hips moving back and forth wildly, trying to push deeper inside him. On the lewd sounds of flesh hitting flesh in passion. On his own shy moans and Kidd's low groans. On Kidd's huge cock inside him, on how despite his size Law could take him easily, as if Law had been born for him.

As if Kidd was his. For him.

Law grabbed the other's ass in a possessive gesture, pressing him more firmly into him as his legs opened even further. With satisfaction Law let the god fuck him raw, deeper, harder, as he needed. The grass under him scraped his back as Kidd slammed him into the ground with every move, his hips ached from the forced posture, Kidd seemed to be letting his own anger out, but Law didn't mind. The pleasure kept building, the heat increasing until the snow falling in the room evaporated before touching their bodies.

Law felt the pressure peeking in a knowing way, as the other moved above him in madness, as he grunted against his ear as in heat, as he lowered a hand to caress Law's cock trapped between their bodies never forgetting hiss pleasure. Law felt a warm emotion spread on his chest as he saw Kidd's muscles flexing over him, such rough power, such a great person, all focused on giving him, a mortal, the lower scum, pleasure. How the other felt like a shield protecting him of the evil world. Caring for him. Loving him.

But then Kidd looked at him.

The empty eyes, the pained expression, the rawness in the other golden irises. Law felt the dream shatter around him. He couldn't take this. Not like this.

"Stop" he said in a breathy voice "Stop!"

Kidd stopped in an instant. His expression turned even more pained, his eyes again looked away as if ashamed of what he was doing. Law couldn't take it.

Pushing the other back until Kidd fell on his back again, Law followed and sat over his hips, impaling himself with the other's cock in desperation. Taking the lead, the upper hand. With rage, with a strange need, he closed his eyes and started to fuck himself with the others dick as if his life depended on it. Up and down, deep and rough.

_'It's all a lie. This is just sex'_

Kidd grabbed his hips, trying to stop him, but he moaned as Law ignored him and just kept riding the other cock like an animal in heat. Just trying to forget those eyes, that expression. His own pain. It was a lie. A very good lie.

But it was impossible. When he opened his eyes again, Kidd laid under him in surrender, letting him do as Law pleased, his face a mix of pleasure and fear for him. Of love and pain.

"STOP IT" he screamed "STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!"

It was false. It was a lie. It wasn't true. Law closed his eyes, and let his hips fall roughly against the other's. He was there, he could taste the orgasm he just...

Kidd's arms circle his waist and pushed him against his chest like a lover cradling his crying partner.

"It's true. I love you, Law" he whispered against his ear, so low, so weak that Law barely heard it between their breaths "So much that it scares me"

It shattered him.

With a pained groan, Law felt the pleasure take over him, destroying his train of thoughts, destroying everything else in a mind shattering orgasm. Law felt the other's body tense under him, following him, as if connected, but his brain was too shocked to say anything, to do anything, and for a few seconds he just lay there, crumbled on top of the other.

Unmoving, trying to process what had happened, trying to understand everything. Trying to fight the pleasure and spasms his body kept having and trying just to move so he could run away from all this.

When he recovered, he found himself alone between the plants and the snow, curled warmly under one of Kidd's coats.

Kidd was nowhere to be seen.

Emotions swirled inside him. The memories, the words, his whole life and torture filled him. He had been wrong about the god. But he couldn't trust other people that way. It would kill him. He had been betrayed so many times that opening in that way to anyone, even more to a god like Kidd, was terrifying. So instead he had hurt him, he had broken the last opportunity he would ever have with someone, the last gift he had been given.

It was too much.

Curling under the coat, Law hid his face under the fur that smelled of metal and whiskey, and for the first time in decades he cried as he had never cried before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be true Law is dealing better with jealousy than Kidd will. I mean, Kidd would probably just kill anyone who looked at Law amorously. Law just went...possessive, using the old tactic of "If you sleep with anyone, you will do it with me too, asshole".
> 
> Also, well, trust is complicated.
> 
> So what will happen? Where is Kiddo? What does he think? what does he feel? what will he do? What about Law? Is he really that stupid? (yes, he is) What is he gona do to solve this mess? And the most important thing, what u think of the lemon?  
> Chan chan chan


	9. A World of Greys and Blacks

" _Never open the door to a lesser evil,_

_for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it."_

\- Old warning between nobles.

 

 

The day was dark and grey. The fog rose from the big black river and filled the street of Inverness with an unsettling ambience and a cold and intense wind which curled between the chimneys and muddy paths leaving everything frozen. It wasn't raining, not anymore, but the day was far from being warm and cozy, it didn't invite people to go out and met relatives. It invited less to do business or go to work.

To Doflamingo however, it was a day as perfect as any other day.

Doflamingo, lord and owner of the city, walked through his small castle with a mix of satisfaction and anger inside him. At least, after two damn weeks of asking, the elders had decided to hold a meeting with him. As if he wasn't the damn duke and lord of the place, as if he wasn't over them in position and power.

 _It was so ashaming_.

Doflamingo still didn't understand why he had to meet and talk with this men as if he was a child needing his parents. He understood even less why he had to share his power. He hadn't heard of any other king or noble man needing to do this.

Inverness had never been a normal city, so high up north, it was the last human city of the world before the unknown territories began. The dangerous and innavigable waters of the black ocean at the south and east, the paramo of Ireland on the west, and the swamps at north. They were surrounded by dangers. The human world was already small enough for the kingdom of Scotland, Wales and England to share it. The kingdom of Ireland had once existed too, but it had disappeared so long ago, the legends and stories of it were so old only the priest remembered them.

Doflamingo should be happy of being duke of one of the biggest cities, of one of the strongest kingdoms, but Inverness was still too wild for him. Some people said it was because of the cursed swamp he had sent Law into. That place held secrets, creatures, legends so old that no one dared to enter it. It was considered dangerous. Sacred. Deadly. It had always been one of the mysteries of the world, expeditions had been sent, as ships into the south and east seas, as knights into the old Ireland, but no one ever returned.

However, you could ignore the sea, you could ignore a land you couldn't see, but the swamp… Doflamingo could still see the blackness from his chambers, he could feel the toxicity in his skin, the shadows that crawled next to it at night.

Therefore, the people on this land had turned superstitious, believing in those old legends and traditions no other kingdom believed. Women left plates full of milk at night to please the faeries, people never consoled a weeping woman let it be a banshee, never approached a lone horse let it be a demon, if a black cat crossed paths with you, you needed to take seven steps back and pray. All men carried a horseshoe or a four leaves clover on them for protection, even the more studious ones. No one crossed the northern hill on a full moon. You couldn't start a business on a thirteenth day. You had to sacrifice the first grains of your harvest to the god of…

So many stupid rules. In Doflamingo's case he had to share his power with the elders, a group of people that in old times had controlled the kingdom alone, before the kings, even before the civilization, some say even before the blackness at the beginning of their history.

It was so stupid. Times changed, but instead of being abolished, as any other old and unfashioned tradition, in Scotland, it was still vigent.

Doflamingo entered the meeting room of the palace, Vergo stopping just outside and closing the doors. The room was huge, full of carpets over stone floors, paintings over tall walls and candles. So many candles. It was always so dark in the castle. Yet this was one of the most luxurious rooms, created to impress any visitor and show them their power and wealth.

A huge desk made of luxurious cherry tree wood had been settled between it all, right under the painting of the ceiling describing "The Beginning". Five chairs and a golden throne had been placed around it. There was food on the table, tea, whiskey and rum from the kingdom of England, scones, sandwiches and some desserts had been also placed along it.

Doflamingo ignored it all and, taking his place on the throne made of pure gold, he observed the people around him, the elders, although they weren't elders anymore.

Blackbeard, one of the richest men of the country thanks to his commerce's contacts sat next to him. He was fat, ugly and utterly disgusting. Crocodile, a dark man from a dark place sat on his other side. He, on the other hand, was handsome, strong, and he played with economy and money as if he had been born just for it. There was also Akainu, the general of Inverness' army, Aokiji, the law of the city, and lastly and in front of him, the newest and Doflamingo's most detested member: Shanks.

Doflamingo observed them all. These five men controlled the city, the most important one of the country. The King at Stirling would of course disagree, but what did he know? The boy wasn't even Scottish, his detractors when crowned had been many. The power was now on them, the nobles, the rich people, the powerful ones. _The elders_. If Doflamingo played well his cards he would one day be king, the thing he had aspired to from the beginning.

That's why this meeting was so important. What he was about to ask these men could be considered treason for many, but he had no other choice. There was only one person who could stop him from being king, for accomplishing his dreams: Trafalgar Law.

"I have called you here to talk about an important issue" he said as the men looked at him bored.

He had already bribed Crocodile, and Blackbeard, they would be on his side, but he needed a majority of votes for his ask to be approved. _It was the stupid tradition_. He needed to convince Aokiji or Akainu. Shanks was, as always, out of question, his morals and principles had always been the opposite of Doflamingo's. It was a thing he had never understood, how had this man reached this position without blooding his hands?

He returned to the present.

"It's in regards of Trafalgar Law" he finally said, setting the topic with a blank bored expression, the one fitted to a king.

Shanks in front of him grunted disgusted. He had opposed from the start in sending the boy to the deadly swamp to do the impossible. He had even threatened Doflamingo for the boy's sake. Plain stupid, if they asked him. Doflamingo was a Duke, Shanks could be powerful, but he was still in an inferior league. Doflamingo had settled a small attack on his pregnant wife then, but the man, instead of stopping protesting on Law's favour and be intimidated, had started an investigation and a campaign against him Doflamingo was having difficulty to cover.

He was just a pain in the ass. They just couldn't stand one another.

"What now? Law had stopped the rain as you wanted!" Shanks complained.

"That is exactly the problem" Doflamingo continued, a ringed hand filling his golden cup with strong amber whiskey " _He had stopped the rain_. What do you think will happen when he comes back?" he asked drinking from the cup and not looking at the redhead, as if he was the most worthless thing on earth.

"He would be a hero, the people would adore him" Crocodile provided, adding fuel to the duke's accusations, while looking bored and regal as he spread butter on a little scone.

The man had always wanted the throne like Doflamingo. He had managed to gain his help today but he should watch him closer.

"Law had always been a pariah, he had always detested the monarchy and us all, if he decides to raise arms against us when he returns, people could follow him" Blackbeard said with a faked hateful and scared tone.

"We could lose our power, our influence and maybe our lives" Crocodile continued, still spreading butter, his tone calm, even, controlled.

"We have to kill him!" Blackbeard shouted standing up.

Doflamingo drank from his goblet of whiskey hiding a smile. He looked at his prey. Akainu had a frown on his face, he was considering the words. Aokiji just considered his tea as if he wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

"Is this for real?" Shanks asked with a non-profit, believing face, making Doflamingo grimace again "Are you going to kill a hero? The first person who had survived the swamps in the history of the world?"

"He could be dangerous" Doflamingo commented.

"He is a hero!" Shanks shouted, "This is treason!"

"…It's true that he would held a lot of power when he comes back" Akainu commented "And he comes from such a low and dirty place, a pariah nonetheless" he said with disgust "We can't give such an animal so much power, he would end up behaving like a rabid dog, biting friend and foes and spreading his filth"

This time Doflamingo couldn't hide his smile. Akainu was so predictable, he hated the lower classes so much. For him, having a pariah, the lowest class of them all, waving a power bigger than his in his face would be unthinkable. It had been a good idea to use that trick. Doflamingo looked at Blackbeard who was also smiling.

Maybe he should watch him too. He wasn't as stupid as he looked.

"This is treason!" Shanks repeated with disbelieving eyes.

"It's for the best" Doflamingo corrected again with his calm controlled attitude "Such a man could even put his majesty at risk. We all know it's better to kill any threats"

Crocodile, Akainu and Blackbeard nodded. Shanks paled. Aokiji kept observing his tea.

"Votes in favour?" the blond and regal man asked casually, the whiskey leaving a cold and pleasant taste on his mouth.

Three hands raised deciding the fate of a man as if he was nothing. He wondered at the irony of what he was doing. But he had won. Law would finally die. The threat would be eradicated and Doflamingo would be king.

"Votes against?" he continued with the tradition, also mocking his enemy's lack of power.

Lone and pathetic, Shanks raised his hand. Fury and hate shining in his brown eyes. Doflamingo wanted to smirk in this small victory. One day he would crush this man under his heel, one day he would make him kneel before him, but for now, he would be content with these little games.

Aokiji stood and walked to the door ignoring it all.

"Sentence approved, Trafalgar Law will be killed before he can reach the capital" then he raised his cup and proclaimed, "Long live Scotland"

A chorus answered him.

The sentence was soon signed by him, as the Duke and proposer, and his three votes, the thanks and congratulations were exchanged, and more fake smiles and fake phrases were exchanged. Crocodile and Blackbeard shook his hand with a superior and amused glint in his eyes. Buying them had costed a fortune to the kingdom. Akainu only ignored them and left with his golden and useless armour clinking behind him.

"I won't let you do this to him" Shanks whispered at the end when they were finally alone in the room, the redhead looking at him as if he was a venomous snake.

Doflamingo only smiled as if the other had just praised him. As a king would address a rebellious man.

"How are your wife and your little boy doing?" he just commented casually.

Shanks tensed and another kind of hate filled his eyes. His fist clenched, his eyes shone dangerously, and he looked about to strike. Shanks was dangerous, very dangerous, but Doflamingo had mastered his arts through the years. Shanks was just a lamb learning to walk in a field full of wolves, he would submit to the bigger of them, or die as the others before him.

"You would do nothing, Shanks" he warned with that bored tone, as is Shanks' mere presence tired him.

The redhead slammed a fist on the table making the cups fall to the floor and the whole room tremble. Dangerous, indeed. The man kept staring at him as if he could already see his death.

"One day you will fall from your pedestal, _my lord_ " he said with a newfound calmness in his voice "And that day, I will be there to help you die"

The words sounded strangely prophetical, and as the redhead left the room with long and powerful strides, Doflamingo found himself crushing his cup between his fingers until the precious gems encrusted on it broke.

…oOo…

Groans and moans filled the room as the two bodies collided again and again. Their shared room was big, the two beds, the huge bathtub, the soft carpets on the floor, the black glass of the walls… it also felt private and cosy after so many days living under transparent glass and ice.

It felt as theirs, it felt secret, as what they were doing.

Law lowered his hips again, following a quick rhythm, up and down, deeper, harder, numbing. Kidd grunted under him, his muscles trembling under Law's hands as if Law could destroy him.

They were both so close.

Both were naked in the bathtub, the room had filled with steam and their shared breaths as the minutes kept ticking. Law remembered they had been training at first, in the room covered just with furs, and the ceiling so close to the sea surface. But Kidd had been so silent today, so deep in thought, serious and cold that Law couldn't stand it. He had kissed him, trying to wipe away that expression from the other's face, trying to make him put on another one, a very different one.

They had again ended up in their room.

As the previous day. As the day before that. As they have been doing for a week.

Law didn't understand the situation they were in anymore. He didn't understand himself. There was a part of him that wanted the other leave, out of his life. It was a part that was too afraid of what was happening, of what he was feeling and doing with the god. It was the part that had helped him survive so far, clinical, cold, strong.

But the other part of him, the part that wasn't so strong, the one that had cried when his friends had died, remembered that first time, Kidd's pained expression, his own pain, he remembered the delicate caresses, Kidd's words… and that soft little part wanted to answer back, to make Kidd smile, to understand him and be with him all the time he could.

Both parts were him and he was both parts. They were tearing him apart.

Kidd caressed his back. Soft butterfly fingers along his column, guiding him into going slowly, into tasting the moment, the other deep inside him, as Law rode him again in the hot water. Listening to his smart lover, Law's hips slowed, his whole-body trembling under the pleasure and the control he had to maintain to keep the new maddening rhythm. Law closed his eyes as he went up again, as he felt the other leaving his body, inch by inch, making him feel so open, empty and needy.

He moaned into the silent room and gripped the sides of the tub until his knuckles turned white.

"Yeah baby, just like that" Kidd whispered against his lips, his hands now on his ass guiding him down, too slowly, making him focus on their connected bodies, on every little friction they shared, until Law felt so full and yet so desperate for _more_ , he wanted to cry.

Kidd kissed his lips softly as a praise. He caressed one of his nipples with cold fingers as a reward. He gripped his ass with the other hand making him keep the position and wait as if he also needed to taste the moment.

What was happening? This was so far from the sex he had known all his life. He didn't know how to call it. Law wanted to grab at the other, kiss him, obey every one of his little orders, let him do to him what he wanted and never let go. Fear gripped him. He couldn't be feeling this. It was dangerous. He would get hurt again.

Kidd finally kissed him lovingly, slowly, when the new pace he was setting, taking Law into his mouth, and caressing his whole body with his hands before setting them back again on his naked ass. Gripping him hard he made Law raise his hips again, slow, maddening, the friction so small and little Law wanted to scream at him. He needed more, he needed to feel Kidd fucking him again, he wanted to hear him...

Suddenly Kidd pressed and slammed him down onto his cock. Law whimpered against the redhead's mouth, his strength left him and he collapsed over the other.

Kidd hold him easily in place. Law felt as if about to break.

Kidd repeated the movement, getting out of him slowly, so slow it was almost a tease, anticipation cursing through his veins, silence filling the room, and then, suddenly, without warning a quick lowering move, filling him till the base. Water splashed around him, Law whimpered again feeling his nerves on edge with the mix of painful need and the sudden overload of pleasure. Law could just arch on the other's arms as Kidd repeated the movement a few times.

Kidd raised him slowly, Law cried. Kidd kissed his neck. In that point they had discovered made Law weak. He caressed his taut nipples again, just below the curve of one of his tattoos, making him remember the day the redhead had spent kissing all of them, slowly and tenderly, with a wild look in his eyes, as if he knew where they came from and what they hid.

He had never felt so exposed.

Law shivered as the other kept him suspended over his cock once again. Teasing him as he loved to do. Holding him on the verge of an orgasm, loving him so sweetly, so beautifully, Law felt himself breaking. Why did the other always focused on Law's pleasure instead of his own? Why was he like this? Didn't Kidd understand they couldn't be together? That this was all impossible?

Why? Why he kissed him like he was the most marvellous thing in the world? Why he cared so much for him?

Kidd slammed him down on his cock again.

Law shouted reaching his end. Kidd grunting under him suddenly hugging him and hiding his face in his neck. The pressure, the emotions, the situation destroyed Law's mind. He climaxed and broke apart. He couldn't do this. Not anymore. It was breaking him. It was breaking Kidd. They were both going to break.

But when after a moment of spasming, of slowly rutting together, Kidd raised him to his level, and curled around him caressing every part of his anatomy, Law could only return the caress.

He stroked his fingers over the red hair of the other as they both tried to control their breathing, he kissed him back slowly, patiently, as if they had all the time in the world. As if they could do this forever. As a reflexive movement.

When Kidd smiled at him one last time before sinking again in the warm water next to him, with that happy and satisfied smile Law had only seen a few times, he had to blink rapidly to contain the tears.

Deep down he knew it was too late. He was going to get hurt. He already felt so much for this man. As he had never felt for anyone. In a self-destroying kind of way that again pleased and scared him. But what hurt him the most was knowing that Kidd was going to suffer too. Because of him. Because of his lack of control, because of his selfishness.

_They were both going to break._

…oOo…

Kidd was again in the library full of books and useless-Zoro-things, pretending to read. Law was next to him, curled against his side, reading one of the thick books that his friend had given him. Not a sound could be heard in the place beside the fire. It had been like that for a while, for a week to be exact, since that day when they had…

Kidd closed his eyes feeling the stupid pain again.

They didn't talk about it, they didn't comment it, they just trained, eat or fuck, sometimes in a different order but always the same. No more, no less.

Kidd didn't know if he should be happy.

He had Law, the other had ended up in his bed, not fucking as he had wanted at the beginning, but making sweet deep love that had made Kidd feel as the most powerful man on earth the first few times. Kidd had never had such wonderful sex in all his years of existence, he had delighted in exploring the other's body, in learning what made him mad, what made him beg, or cry in pleasure. He had marked him, he had ridden the other, let the other ride him, they had tried all positions they could imagine, all places, they had…

Yet something was missing, something felt wrong.

 _The silence. The tense atmosphere_.

On the outside they may look like a perfect couple, together, fucking, sharing, but Kidd knew the truth. Law didn't answer to his questions about a future, they didn't talk about the door, about the rain, about Law's feelings, about what had happened. Kidd had the feeling that just a little whisper from the outside world would shatter them both.

So the silence remained.

Kidd could feel Law struggle, he wasn't an idiot. One moment the man was kissing him as if he couldn't live without Kidd's mouth, and the next he was pushing him away. Law wanted this, he could see it in his look, in the little wonder the other sometimes had, in the kisses he sometimes returned, but again, the things that separated them were bigger than the ones that united them.

Even if, for Kidd, this was the only thing in his life that had made him feel alive, with a purpose, real. What would he do without Law? When he returned to the dark grey days of existence?

He needed to try a new thing, find a new solution, prolong Law's stay a bit more. He couldn't lose him now. The thought just terrified Kidd. He had never desire something so much in his life, if Law was taken away from him, he would...

He shuddered. He needed to try one last thing.

"Law, you know that this place is Zoro's palace, don't you?" he started.

His lover raised his head and with tired eyes and nodded. His hair was a beautiful mess and he still had Kidd's dark hickeys on his neck. The collarbone of his shirt looked a bit stretched from the last session just moments ago, when Kidd had managed to make him climax just by massaging his sensitive nipples and biting and sucking at his neck and at that perfect weak spot.

Law had been mad afterwards. Flustered too. Kidd wanted to kiss him again.

"I have a palace too" He commented "It's not far from here, in the sky, over the clouds level, the beds are made of clouds and warm breezes from the south, I have a pool full of rain water, and at night you can see the constellations…"

Law just looked at him as if waiting for him to end, curiosity and wonder in his deep grey eyes. He was so beautiful, so perfect, how couldn't he see this at the beginning? How perfect the other was? How well he fit in his arms? How kissable his lips looked?

"Kidd?"

"Wanna come see it? We could stay for a few days?" he finally whispered against the other's lips. As a secret. As something wicked.

Law froze, tension, and fear suddenly emanating from him. Kidd closed his eyes, paralyzed too. He expected something hurtful, some hard words, something that would shatter the strange thing they had managed to create between them, this truce, this little wonderful moment of time.

It was his fault. He had spoken of a taboo. He had asked about a future.

However, Law said nothing. Slowly, he closed the book with elegant fingers. Slowly he got up with elegant movements, deposited the book on the elegant desk, and walked to the exit, with those tempting long legs of his. _In the deep horrible silence_.

He did nothing, he said nothing. He just walked away as if this conversation was painful for him too.

Kidd didn't need anything else. It was all the answer he had needed. They weren't talking about it because there was no future for them. Law was a mortal. Kidd was a god. It was impossible. It was better to separate now, to take this little moments and then let him cross the door to never see him again. It was better to break this when they still could, when it won't hurt so much.

 _There wasn't a future_.

Something inside Kidd seemed to break. He contained a scream as the biggest pain he had ever felt, threatened to overtake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you all to know that there is just England in the world, I don't know if I would explain the why, cos it's not relevant for the fic, old history and all that, maybe would do it at the end as side nothes, but right now it might change your view and I wanna keep this part simple.
> 
> About Shanks and the elders, well, he is powerfull, a noble, but he can't compeate against Doffy who is master badass, duke of Inverness, and evil incarnate. Still Shanks would try to help the babies, he is the only "good" guy in the elders if you can say that, I wanna make him neutral, but the others are just so corrupt, greedy and all that evil things that he would probably look like a hero.
> 
> About what will happen, well, we are getting closer to the plot-twist, so have fun and remember leaving reviews people. Don't be mean like Doffy.


	10. Bad News

" _The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."_

They had just started to eat, the table was still full of Kidd's amazing dishes: bread filled with shrimps and a creamy sauce, roasted sea urchins and crabs, caramelized salmon, clamps with white wine and kelps...Kidd had always been such a great cook, however, this time Zoro found himself unable to take another bite. An electric current suddenly surged thought him. Powerful, uncomfortable, and utterly disgusting, as if a bolt had paralyzed his nerves. His head grew dizzy, his hands numbed and his breath caught as he felt the sensation pass him, and vanish as quickly as it had come.

Zoro blinked, suddenly alert. He looked around. The dining room where they were eating was warm, wide and comfortable. The large table were the tree of them were eating still had the marks of the knives Kidd had thrown at him before. The crystal walls looked over the garden room below in a mix of blue and green. Law next to Zoro was silently focusing on the food, Kidd, in front of him, was looking at the boy as if waiting for something. Everything felt normal, nothing having changed, however, the strange sensation kept bugging Zoro.

Something wasn't right, the world seemed the same, but its shape just seemed to have shifted, making it bigger, stretching it, connecting it to something large.

Zoro shook his head confused. He was seeing too much; his paranoia was growing bigger now that the mortal accompanied them. Everything was fine. He was about to raise a spoon to his mouth when a memory filled his mind. _He had felt this before_. He had felt it several times through his life, the last one being when… His eyes fell on the mortal trying to crack open a crab.

 _No_! Zoro tensed. It was too soon, they weren't ready, they hadn't even…

"What's the matter?" Kidd said looking at him. Tensing too and looking around. Preparing for a combat or a sudden attack.

The greenhead breathed deep and even. He got up from the table, picking up his plate still filled with food without looking at them. Law had stopped eating the crab and now looked at him suspiciously too. Kidd was now frowning looking around the room.

"The door is open" he announced giving them his back. "It would close soon, so we should prepare quickly"

A different kind of silence filled the room then. Tense, angry and scared. Zoro approached a little sink and started washing his plate giving the pair a little moment of intimacy. Kid, however, said nothing. Law didn't talk either, he just got up from the table as Zoro had done, and ran in the direction of his room, leaving his plate half empty, the blue crab opened over a silver plate.

Zoro continued cleaning the dishes as he studied his friend from the corner of his eyes waiting for a reaction. Kidd continued to do nothing. At first glance he looked fine, calm, just in thought. His fingers danced over the rim of a glass as if wondering about something mundane and unimportant. It wasn't until one looked into his golden eyes that one could find a storm like Zoro had never seen before in his friend. Kidd looked about to commit a murder or make someone cry and beg for his life. He looked like the god some mortals thought them to be: cruel, angry, powerful. The room grew small as Kidd's immense power filled it, the air crackling with energy, the table trembling as if moved by invisible forces.

Zoro frowned.

It was good to see Kidd feeling so passionate about something after so many years of indifference, just feeling, but this wasn't a good path to take. Anger wasn't a good emotion, it was necessary, yes, it helped you survive, but it also caused too much destruction.

He knew why Kidd was feeling this way, he knew what had happened between them. Dear god, he had eyes everywhere in his fucking home, the palace was almost a part of him, and the other ones hadn't exactly been subtle about it! Zoro could almost count with the fingers of one hand the rooms they _hadn't_ used. He was happy for them despite the inconvenience, he had been the same once, but he was also worried for the turn in events.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go, he liked them together, but not like this, they couldn't even talk normally to one another. The other two were too proud to confess and recognize what they felt and they just kept silently hurting themselves and the other. Such stupidity, they were worse than children. Zoro didn't know if this would end up well, it had turned too complicated, and he wasn't exactly an expert to guide them in this process.

Now, they had run out of time.

A crack sounded in the room behind him, and Zoro turned to see that Kidd had broken the glass between his fingers. Shards of glass and drops of blood falling onto the wooden table. Kidd stayed silent. His golden eyes still had a dark golden tone. Dangerous. Unhealthy. Mad. Zoro stepped in his direction, now alarmed and very worried. This wasn't right, he won't lose Kidd to anger and madness, not when he had gotten him back.

Kidd however, just got up, gave Zoro his back and left the room in the opposite direction Law had taken, not giving Zoro any time to talk.

He went in the direction of the door of the palace.

Zoro sighted. He knew what Kidd would try, but it was impossible. The stone door was indestructible. He didn't know exactly what it was or how it had been created, but it went beyond any god's power. If Zoro hadn't been able to break it, Kidd, a lesser god, won't be able to even scratch it.

Law was returning to his world. There was only one way to stop him, and it wasn't by destroying the door. Kidd had to understand it. _They had to talk_.

Zoro turned away from the sink and took a little piece of fabric from a cupboard. He started to fill it with cheese, bread, dried meat and products for Law to take on his journey back. He trusted that Kidd will be able to convince Law to stay. But he also knew his friend's stubbornness. This could go incredibly right, or incredibly wrong, but in any case, Kidd's fate would be decided by his decision.

...oOo…

Law observed the room in front of him with a mix of panic, satisfaction and worry. The time has come, he was going back to his world, to his normal life with normal people. To Scotland, where the rain fell and the hills were a deep emerald green. To Inverness, with its grey fogs and it's black castle. _Home_.

To a world where Kidd wouldn't follow him.

The both parts of his mind battled with fury. One wanting to stay in these worlds and be with this amazing creature, the one he loved like nothing else, the one that despite everything seemed to cheer him up as no one had ever done before. The other part, however, was still scared of it all and was just waiting for another betrayal to happen.

To trust or not to trust. To risk everything he had again, or leave and be safe.

The decision was still too hard, no matter how many days passed, no mattered what Kidd did or said. It was Law's decision. Law knew he loved Kidd, but did the god really love him? Or was he just lying like all the others? Like everyone Law had met in his life?

The time had come. He needed to make the decision now. There was no time left. If he stayed, he would stay forever, as Kidd had said, the door had its own free will, it could open again, or it could stay closed for the rest of Law's life. If he stayed, it would be forever. If he left, it would be forever, too.

Could he really leave Kidd? Forget about him? Would he regret this decision? But also, could he risk his freedom, everything he had fought for, for this man? One he couldn't yet believe or trust?

Law walked another step into the room as his mind advanced in its own discussion. The room he shared with Kidd was a mess. Last night they had done everything but sleep. Zoro had pounded on the door even demanding silence. Law blushed remembering it. The bed sheets they now shared were crumpled, even torn in some parts thanks to Kidd's nails, clothes were scattered everywhere, with weapons and opened books, the tub was still filled with water, puddles around it, the desk had a broken leg, the carpet on the floor had a suspicious mark, even the wall next to the door was a bit cracked thanks to Kidd's thrusts.

Their things were now mixed together. The proof of their passion filling every corner of the room and making memories rise again in Law's mind, heating up his body. Their lives were mixed. Their paths crossed. It felt right. Heart-warming. It felt destined.

Law picked his dagger from the floor. The small silver dagger Rayleigh had given him when he had finished his training, and the one that was now rusty after the swamp's toxicity. Law threw it into a bag on the floor. Then he picked a book, the anatomy one that Vivi had given him before disappearing, he also picked a shirt, a sock, and dumped them in the bag too. Slowly, without thinking, Law picked up his things from the room and filled the bag. A blanket. His bow. A boot. A sharpening leather. A pedernal...

When he finished in mere minutes, the room suddenly felt empty and cold. Law had never had too many things. The stuffed bag in his hands was small, insignificant, but heavy. His whole life could be packed in such a little bag.

A knock sounded at the door, and when he turned, Zoro, still half-dressed from their previous training session, handed him a pack that smelled of food, and that was bigger than he needed.

Law looked at it. Zoro was expecting him to leave, giving him a departing present. Kidd had told him at the beginning how he wanted him to leave too. He had told him how a god and a mortal couldn't be together. He had laughed. He had mocked him. Doflamingo was waiting for him on the other side. And Luffy. And Shanks. And his beloved freedom. The rain had stopped. He had done everything he had wanted to do here. His mission was complete.

Now he needed to return and gain his reward.

Kidd hadn't ever tried to stop him from returning. He had told him about his house hinting at a future, he had given him pleasure and whispered encouraging words in his ears, he had even saved his life…. but that was all. He had never actually asked him to say, that time, when Kidd had confessed, when Law had heard the words he most needed, it had been in the middle of sex, so maybe just in the heat of the moment. Kidd hadn't repeated them. He hadn't said anything.

Law's eager mind was reading too much into the situation. Again. Would he ever learn?

Law took the bag of food without saying anything. It was the best. He needed to leave.

Getting out of the room, he walked outside, following glass corridors he had learned long ago, and that now looked familiar. He won't see them again.

...oOo...

Kidd stormed over the land with tightly clenched fists and a murderous glance. The land at his feet was now dry, little green sprouts now having fully grown, there were little white flowers too between the lush green, even animals seemed to have appeared as a bright blue bee buzzed next to him. The looming dark cliffs have turned into a beautiful landscape, shadowing over a roaring blue sea that not long ago had been a frozen moor.

Kidd observed the door atop of it. Dark stone, intricate drawings in a language no one now understood, and that uneasy light that seemed to ooze from the rocks. It was beautiful. It was powerful. A miracle of past days.

Kidd had been trying to destroy it for half an hour.

At first just with brute force. He had pushed, kicked, he had even tried to pull the rocks apart one by one. But while touching it, a strange numbness spread over his fingers and body, as if the arc of stones sucked on his energy. As if it was trying to repel him, forbidding him to cross.

Then, despite him knowing better, he had tried to use his power.

They had answered him.

For the first time in millennia, after so many efforts, and trials, his power had obeyed him as if they had never left. A lightning bolt had fallen from the sky and stuck the stones in a roaring bang of light and thunder. The arc had resisted, of course, but Kidd had been too dumbfounded for what had happened that he had momentarily forgotten his rage.

Believing it a coincidence, a weird joke from destiny, Kidd had tried it again. The sky had cleared from the eternal dark clouds, the sun had smiled at him, warm, bright, like an old friend welcoming him back. Kidd had made it rain then. He had made snow fall. A hurricane mess with the sea at the feet of the cliffs...

It was back. Powerful as ever.

No matter his current emotions, his rage or his frustration, his powers had obeyed him as they had so long ago. For a moment Kidd had wondered why? Why now? Why not when he had needed it? What had changed that could provoke this development?

 _Law_.

Rage and sorrow filled him again. He remembered the boy, raising from the table at lunch, so eager to leave him when Zoro had announced the news. Not looking at him. Not saying anything. Not wanting to stay with him.

Kidd turned to the stones and struck them again with all he had. Thunder, lightning, roaring wind, frozen water... The ground trembled, the rocks under the arc cracked, some of them falling into the sea. But the arc remained. It always remained, as it would do for eternity.

Kidd knew he was acting like a child. He had no right to do this. It was Law's decision, if he wanted to leave, Kidd shouldn't stop him, it wasn't his place. But still, the mere thought of not seeing him again, of not touching, of not hearing him, made Kidd want to scream and destroy things. Law was his! They belonged to one another, he couldn't leave him here.

He had to stop him, if he couldn't destroy the arc he would try with something else. He wouldn't let him leave. Not without fighting, not when Law had been the best thing that had happened to him in all his life. He would beg him. He would say everything he hadn't say, he would fucking chain him to this world if necessary, but Law wasn't leaving!

Kidd knew he was breaking the rules. He was doing something that was forbidden, he could die if it was discovered he sheltered a mortal, they couldn't coexist, he had never known why, but the empress had always been adamant about it. Mortals wouldn't come into this world. Gods were forbidden to go to theirs. However, Kidd didn't fucking care. He had never been one to follow the rules, the court in the capital had always regarded him as a rogue, and Kidd was happy with that.

All that mattered now was Law staying with him.

A hand felt on his shoulder.

Turning, he faced Zoro who was looking at him with hard serious eyes. Pain and worry mixed in the green iris of his dear friend and brother. Kidd knew the image he was giving, he knew the fears the other had. But Kidd was different from Zoro, he won't fall into madness.

"It's time" his friend however announced.

They both turned to face Law, to the mortal who had changed so much in such a little time. His grey eyes were emotionless, the mask having fallen again to cover his emotions. Kidd hated it. It had been hard enough to crack it just to see him putting it back again so easily.

The boy wore the same things he had worn when Kidd had found him, black boots, black trousers, rusty weapons, a little bow and the bag at his back. He looked so different now. Kidd could recognise the tiredness on what had looked like weakness back then, he could see the worn-out clothes of a warrior on what at the beginning had looked like poverty. Law was strong, marvellous, brave, everything Kidd had dreamed of in a partner.

Kidd could see now his soulmate on what had been a stranger not so long ago.

It was time. It was now or never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is shorter than other's I have wrote, but it's because of a reason, I could have rushed the news and the goodbye in one chapter but I preferred to have it separated cos if not it would be too long…and also because I'm mean and love cliffhanger. So, what happens now? Would Law really leave or Kidd would suck it up and convince him to stay? What the hell is that door that it can't even be destroyed by a god's power?


	11. Doors of Stone and Magic

> " _It's a dangerous business, Law, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep_
> 
> _your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."_
> 
> -Quote from Law's father. Four hours before his death.
> 
>  

Law stood in front of the magical door he had been waiting to cross. The stones were shining with a yellowish light he already knew, it seemed to be calling for him, luring him to cross to the other side and get out of a world he shouldn't have entered in the first place.

He was ready, mentally and physically ready. He had his backpack with all he needed to return through the deadly swamp and go back home to Inverness. He had done his duty too, the sun was now shining bright in the sky as it has been doing for days now, the wild flowers sprouted all around him, the snow and ice had melted to show an impressive sight. There were no more clouds, there was no depressing rain. Doflamingo won't be able to do anything against him now when he returned as a hero, he would give him his freedom and Law would start a new life out of his reach.

Everything he had ever wished for was on the other side of the door, just a step away. But then, why was he finding it so difficult to cross and find that happiness.

Law turned to where Zoro was standing waiting for his departure. It was time to say goodbye. The green haired man, god of the seas, said nothing as Law hugged him one last time. A quick but tight hug. Law would miss this man, he had helped him with a lot of things, understanding this world and the people living in it, he had even supported him when Law had needed it. When he separated, Zoro sent Kidd an annoyed glare and walked a few steps back as if to give Law and Kidd some privacy in their farewell.

Law tensed.

Kidd approached him too, but his eyes weren't sad, not even remorseful as Zoror's had been, he had intense angry eyes. Eyes that made Law shiver. He looked huge today, like the first time they had met, tall, muscular and imposing, with that fur coat and the sword on his hip, like a king came out from legends. Handsome, attractive and deadly.

Law prepared for the fight Kidd seemed to be about to start for some reason. He had seen him trying to destroy the door but couldn't understand why? He didn't wasn't to fall into false conclusions. Kidd looked as tense and angry as Law remembered from the beginning of their relationship. Law's own pose changed in consequence, his hand drew back to the sword in an intuitive gesture he could no longer control, feet apart to run or to kick, and eyes submissive as if he presented no threat.

Kidd finally stepped in front of him. So close that he could feel the redhead's breath on his cheek, his eyes studying him intently, as if he was trying to see something inside Law. Law didn't draw back. They were beyond that already.

"Don't go back" Kidd suddenly said, his voice hard, an order.

Law observed him for a while frowning without having expected that. Why was he suddenly saying this? What was he trying to do? Why did he look so pissed if he just wanted him to stay?

"What?"

"Don't go back" Kidd repeated "Stay here. In this world. With me" he words were low, a whisper for them alone.

Law looked away. He remembered his dreams, the ones he could finally fulfil on the other side, across the shining door. He remembered what Kidd and Zoro had said, how dangerous this world was to him, how many problems they could face if someone found Law here.

There were so many reasons to go. And so little to stay. The fact that Kidd was _ordering_ him to stay didn't help either.

"Kidd, I…"he began.

"I love you" Kidd continued grabbing him by the arms, as if in a desperate attempt to kept him by his side. His eyes intent, true, desperate, so angry that he couldn't make him stay.

Law trembled finally understanding the other's attitude. There were hundred of reasons for him to go, _hundreds_ , his whole life was on the other side, dreams, friends, enemies. But Kidd...Kidd was the only reason he had to stay. He was the reason it was being so difficult to cross to the other side where he needed to be.

Law had tried to deny him, to hide himself, to protect himself from being hurt again. They had have sex, but Law had tried to not make any commitment. He had also been lying to himself. _He loved Kidd back_. Since that first night in the greenhouse when his walls had been destroyed and he had been forced to face reality. Kidd had been the only man who had gotten under his skin, the one Law had thought he could have a life with and be happy. He was wonderful, intelligent, annoying, protective, and dear god, the amazing sex they had together!

"I can't stay here, you said it was dangerous" Law continued however, finding a new excuse, trying to hide himself a bit more from this man. This man who had made him want to cry with those last world. He loved him? How? How could someone like Kidd love a mere mortal like Law? Was this another lie?

"I would protect you from anything" Kidd said carefully, now gripping his shoulder, making him raise his head so he could stare into his eyes, and couldn't run away for longer.

So he saw the truth. The love. The need. The desperation.

"I have friends and family on the other side…" Law lied, making Kidd's eyes doubt for a second, just a second as he tightened his grip on his shoulder and leaned down over his mouth.

"You would have me here. Always" he insisted. "I would be with you, no matter what, please Law don't cross that door"

Law closed his eyes at the plea. His whole being trembling. Should he trust another man? Dare to hope again? After all that had happened?

"Why now? Why are you telling me this _now_?! After I have prepared, after….everything" he said, his voice sounding broken, hurt. He had been prepared to leave this land behind. To leave Kidd behind. To leave the only man who had made him smile and be happy after years.

What had taken him so long?

"I was stubborn" Kidd said with a wince "And scared, you never answered me when I said something like this, when I told you about my castle and a future together you fucking ran away! But you can't go away, Law I won't allow it, I won't lose you no matter what, I will go with you if it's needed"

Kidd hugged him, his arms gripping the nape of his neck possessively over the backpack and his fingers playing his his hair. Law nuzzled against the other's chest, appreciating the other's naked body under the furred coat, strong and safe. Something warm and big expanded in his chest, at the words, at the gesture. He didn't want to leave. Kidd would keep him here by force if needed. He had lost hope, but now...

His world was black and gloomy, hurtful and terrible. Why would he want to come back when he had Kidd in here?.

"I will stay" he said against Kidd's chest, surrendering to what was inevitable, his words muzzled by the clothes "I will go with you to your stupid castle, I will be with you until death takes me with her"

Kidd then just kissed him. Understanding his words and his meaning. Law wasn't prepared yet to all the things the redhead had told him, he thinks he never will, putting himself under such vulnerability was unthinkable. But Kidd understood. He understood and kissed him as if Law had actually said the words.

For a moment they seemed to be alone. No door, no Zoro rolling his eyes, no decisions and sad choices. Just them, kissing, finally accepting the thing between them, and prepared to start a life together.

Law bit Kidd's lips like the redhead loved. Kidd groaned against his mouth and pressed their bodies closer like Law loved too. Their blood warmed under the clothes and starting to wake. Law's fingers caressed Kidd's cheek in wonder, he looked in the golden eyes as they parted for a second, and smiled.

They were and would be together. Happy. After so much time apart, after so much time playing around this, they have found what they lacked in their lives and grabbed it.

Then thunder rolled on the sky. The ground shook with a roar. Waves from the sea rose against the clift next to the door splashing them with sea foam. And the bright sky with it's bright sun covered by a mantle of stars and dark velvet. A night that Zoro and Kidd understood too well but couldn't stop.

A figure appeared behind Law. Tall, elegant, with sharp features and hair as black as the night and eyes as bright as the stars. The whole world seemed to tremble under her, under her whims, under her feet, between her fingers. She was everything. The beginning and the end.

Before anyone could do anything, before anyone could say anything. The woman grabbed Law by the backpack and pulled him away from Kidd's arms. Law stumbled back, surprised, unaware of what was happening. He tried to regain his balance but the woman kept pushing, pushing and pushing until she threw Law throughout the magical door of stones.

Law disappeared from the world where he had just found happiness.

..oOo…

Robin observed the human male disappear through the door. The light of the stones shone as they absorbed the human's shadow and pulled him back to his own world. She hadn't even looked at his face, at his features or eyes, she hadn't asked for his name, cursed him or screamed at him. She had just needed him _gone_.

As the light from the arch of stones faded, and the arc turned useless again, dull rocks and dull magic, Robin rose a hand and destroyed the last one of those archways that connected the mortal and immortal realms. She shattered the connection, she closed her land to intruders like the one he had thrown away. Something seemed to die. Something seemed to change and scream in the whole creation, but that was fine, it was what needed to be done.

She turned to face her children.

Kidd, the beast, the unruly one, looked horrified, in shock. Robin couldn't understand why. She had been a benevolent mother, she hadn't killed the human Kidd had been kissing and courting as if he was one of their own. She hadn't aplied the punishment any mortal who set foot in this land deserved.

She had allowed the human to live. There was no reason for such a face.

Her other son, Zoro, once her favourite boy, had a look she despised. There was no love on his expression, not the adoration she deserved, just plain and deadly hate. Zoro had been her first mistake. Long ago, she had killed the person the boy loved, and had created chaos and an enemy of his dear son.

Now that the story was repeating, she won't commit the same mistake. This time she had allowed the filthy human who had touched one of her dearest sons, to live despite her own instincts that had screamed for the dead of that mortal.

There would still be punishment. Of course. For all of them. The rules were there for a reason and she couldn't let them break them. But this time, she would be careful. She won't lose another son, she won't create an enemy out of Kidd too as had happened with Zoro.

"Come with me" she said then, walking among both of rebellious children, her voice rumbling among the land covered by flowers and the dark rainy clouds that were beginning to form over her head.

Kidd roared.

He tried to attack her. Thunder rumbled betwent clouds, frozen rain as sharp as needles started falling from the sky accompanying the rage from his son. Zoro had also done this the last time. He had also looked at her as if she was a monster he needed to defeat, and had raised his powers against his dear mother.

Robin rose a hand as Kidd approached with raised fists.

Her dear boy fell unconscious to the ground after his next step. Asleep until she decided to wake him up. The thunder stopped along the rain and the roaring wind. But the clouds remained. And the cold. A cold Robin remembered had covered their lands for centuries until just a few weeks ago.

Apparently Kidd had recovered his powers. Another reason to not make a mistake with him again, she needed to put him on the right track again so he could help her other children with their powers..

"Take your brother" She ordered Zoro, not daring to look at him, not daring look into those deadly eyes who still wanted her mother dead "You both have roamed enough, it's time for you to return home and face the consequences of what you have done"

As Zoro knelt besides the redhead, Robin sighed. This was the right thing to do, but then, why did she feel as if something was breaking, as if the world was coming to an end? Like she had made another mistake?.

...oOo...

Trafalgar Law fell to the ground. He rolled over grass, over white little flowers and dry lands until his back crushed against the root of a big tree and he stopped rolling.

He gasped for air disoriented, dizzy, weak, as if something had been pulled out of him leaving him empty. Shaking his head knowing he needed to be alert in this new environment, he tried to stand up and draw his daggers, but he fell to the ground again on weak knees. Taking another deep breath, he leaned his back against the tree root for protection, raised his hands with the daggers, and tried to focus his vision.

He was in the clearing from the first time.

The swamp surrounded him. Stinky, dark, humid, but so different from the last time. The muddy water seemed to have dried up and now there was only hardened mud between the trees, not poisonous and not deadly anymore. There was no rain, only the bright sun bove, and the little white flowers that were starting to grow over the black trees who were also spurting leaves, turning the depressing swamp into a place out of fairy tales. Into a wild lush forest.

The door was also there. Big, looming, with the big stones and the strange runes shining with the strange light.

Law had crossed to the other side? How? He knew someone had pushed him, but who? Zoro? No, it couldn't be Zoro, he was a friend, he wouldn't do that to Kidd. Then who? It hadn't been Kidd either, and they had been alone.

Seeing no imminent danger around him, Law started to crawl slowly towards the arc, trying to think with a still dizzy mind.

Something was wrong. Were Kidd and Zoro in danger? Was this the thing they had tried to warn Law about? Law needed to go back, not only to help them overcome this new enemy, but because of Kidd and what they had just started. If he stayed in this world, in his world, the door would close and he won't be able to see Kidd again. He needed Kidd. He needed to go back now as long as the door was still shining, before it closed.

An earthquake sounded under his feet. Small, normal. Then another. Bigger, dangerous. As if a beast was shaking and waking under him. The air shifted, and pressure accumulated on the clearing, Law started to hear a high sound in his ears as the air and the whole world started to tense.

And snapped.

The arch of stones exploded before him with a roaring sound that splitted the ground. Stones and debris were shot into every direction as the tension around him was released in a blow against the world. Law covered himself, turning so the stones would hit the backpack and not him.

For a moment Law lay there. Stunned. Confused. With his mind trying to understand what was happening, then he stood again and looked at the place where the arch had been.

Nothing. No stones, no runes, no door to another wonderful world and to the wonderful man.

Law started to shake.

"Kidd?"

He took one of the stones from the arc, one that had fallen next to him. Maybe he could build it again, the stones were big, it would take time but it would be easy. He observed the runes still shining on it's surface, but as he observed, the light vanished and the stone turned to sand that spilled between his fingers.

There were no stones left. There was no door.

There was no way to go back.

There was no way to see Kidd again.

No kisses. No hugs. No more night in the other's arms. Arguing. Reading. Being happy.

Before he could stop himself, Law felt the tears falling from his eyes, not for the loss, not for Kidd, and what they could have been, but for himself. Another one. He had lost another one. Another friend. Another person he loved. He had lost Kidd, the last person he knew he would ever trust. He had opened himself one last time, he had decided to trust one last time, and this was the consecuenquence.

Again, he hadn't been able to be next to him. He had not been able to protect him.

Law whined alone in the clearing covered with sand, alone in this cruel world. He cried and sobbed as he felt something whiting him finally give up and die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for taking so long, but I was closing other stories, and thinking about future projects but now I can focus on this one. I will try to go back to updating every two weeks, but we will see how that goes. As always thanks to my dear beta, and to you all for waiting.


	12. The Land of Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of all I am sorry for the delay, this was supposed to be published a month ago, but some difficulties arise. Also I have to thank my poor stressed beta, Pio, you are going to fucking end that doctorate, and then you are going to go to a spa and never leave. Love you, and don't worry about this n3n
> 
> In any case people, hope you like this one, we are coming to and end.

" _We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us;_

_we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."_

― _mortal_ _priest on the Inverness cónclave_

 

The capital of the gods was a peaceful and beautiful place. As everything that lived in this lands of power and magic, it was perfect. The roads were straight and luminous, painted with the bright and beautiful mantle of melted gold. Trees of different natures grew on their sides, older than humankind and with branches that stretched far into the sky. There were fountains, parks, little works of art on every corner that no mortal mind would stand to see.

However, the most wonderful things in the city were the houses and palaces in which the gods lived. Some were smaller than a cottage, with barely space to walk in, other sprawled like the mists on an autumn morning. Each god constructed and built their own domain, and as a strange competition, each house was more extravagant than the next.

Ace, the god of fire, had a house covered with red and yellow flames, the light and heat so strong that it could be seen from any part of the city. Nami's palace floated above the rest, levitating through an invisible air current that engulfed the whole structure. There were palaces of deep black stone, of lightning and flowers, some of them were creations that defied logic and comfort, but all of them bore the same statement: Power. Full raw power.

This was a place not meant for mortals.

Among it all, in the center of the magical city, in the middle of the world, lay the most wonderful creation that had ever existed: The god's court and Robin's palace. Rising among it all, overlooking the city and the now green hills of their world, it's tower seemed to be able to touch the sky. Created by the night itself, its big and strong walls seemed to absorb the night, different lights shone on it's windows with the brilliance of stars and galaxies, and strange creatures patrolled its walls, fae, a slaved kind of mortals that had dared to rise against the Queen long ago.

Gods walked within those walls, wearing their most beautifuls dresses, and cruel and fake smiles. The court had been beautiful once, respected and loved, but now it was rotten to the core, treasons and murder happening every hour, the fae now hidden in the corridors from the fearful gods and their plays.

Robin, the mother of all creation, sat among it all on her throne.

She observed her children, uncomfortable and uneasy at what had happened just mere hours ago. The first generation of gods sat on thrones around her, their faces unmoving, unchanging and regal as they faced the rest of the court mingling about in the throne room.

This first generation were her pride, her strongest children, the first ones who had walked with her among the world. Ace who controlled fire. Nami who controlled the air. Boa who ruled over the land...And Zoro, still with chains around his wrists.

Zoro had been the first, her beloved one, her favourite one. Together they had shattered the worlds, they had gone to war, the Queen and her dear general, and the lands had trembled and cried after them. They had lived for each other, they had shared moments, lived and loved like no other. She had seen her child grow with pleasure. She had seen him become the strongest and wisest man she had ever met. Robin had never found such acceptance and love from any other of her children, it had been a wonderful time.

But Zoro had fallen in love with a mortal, and had left her side.

That time had been the first time Robin had hated humans. But then the prophecy had arrived and she had hated them for a very different reason. When she had asked Zoro to forget about his human lover, a famous knight from the mortal realm called Mihawk, Zoro had refused.

She had had no choice but to kill the mortal for Zoro's sake and close the borders so no other of her children would fall again under the dirty creatures' spells.

However, when killing the mortal, she had also lost her dear son. She remembered the screams of her dear favourite one. The cries for forgiveness, the pleas and begging. She still hated those memories. To see Zoro, the pride of their race, reduced to begging for a mortal had been disgusting, dishonourable. She had felt pleasure when stabbing the mortal, when seeing those yellow eyes lost their shine, when hearing his weak heart stopping.

Zoro hated her since then. She suspected he would always hate her for what she had done. Love was a thing she would never understand. Still, she wouldn't change her mind, she won't go back and spare that man's life. A mother had to do the best for her children, and that mortal had been a threat, a threat to her favourite son.

Still, when she had regarded Kidd's new mortal, she had doubted. She could have killed him, but...she couldn't bear another of her children hating her. Not another. Not another one of her favourite ones, a strong one, one of those who still controlled their powers.

So he had let that mortal live.

It still unnerved her, after all, the prophecy had been clear:

" _A mortal will come in the darkest of times._

_Royal blood in his veins. Nasty scars on his hands._

_He will trap a god's heart. He will tear it apart._

_The angered Queen will rise in a fight._

_The realms will cry. Blood will cover the land._

_But it will be to late, and the gods_

_they shall fall."_

No mortal was to enter the world. Not now, not ever. Vivi had never been wrong and Robin would protect her children and her world. She would destroy the mortal world. She would kill every little mortal if it was necessary, she would make her dear sons hate her, she would suffer their disdain.

She would find a way to stop the sickness spreading over them now that Kidd had regained his powers. She would separate them from the nasty untrusting mortals.

They would rule forever.

She observed her court. Her dear first sons were here, seated next to her, but the second, third and fourth generations were also gathered. Even the filthy fifth and sixth and below were present. She didn't normally allow this. Her lesser children were an atrocity, with barely power to survive in this world, they were a disgrace in the world of gods, _in a world of perfection_. They still served the higher generations, but Robin knew that some of her dear sons killed them for sport, as an entertainment, as if they were just play things.

She approved of such behaviour. Power was perfection. Even if they were her children, only the most powerful ones should be allowed to remain.

However today was different. Today all her children were gathering, even some of the fae, the slaves of this world. Today, for the first time in centuries, for the first time since Zoro had betrayed her and had been banished from the court, a trial was about to happen.

Eustass Kidd, a second generation god, would be judged and sentenced for his relationship with his mortal lover...well, she had let him live, Kidd couldn't blame her, but the mortal world was a dangerous cruel place, and humans were so, so weak. It would be so easy to kill him. The mortal would die, but not directly under her hands, Kidd would have no reason to blame or hate her, she had just separated them, but cause no harm to the boy. She would be considered merciful in her dear son's eyes.

Kidd would still need to face a trial for breaking the law. It was part of the rules of this world, but as a second generation god, nothing bad would happen to him. Maybe a few centuries of punishment, but after that, her dear child would realize his mistake and come back to her.

They would be a happy family again.

...oOo...

Zoro walked among the corridors of the palace full of night and stars. Memories of his childhood, or running and playing in this place filled his mind, his mother laughing, his brothers smiles. But then the things had changed. His brothers had started killing each other and her mother had stopped smiling.

And then he had needed to get away from this place.

Walking towards the darkest parts of the palace, his hands bound in chains and his eyes full of despair, Zoro couldn't help but remember that time. Mihawk had been his everything. He had been one of the first mortals that had dared to cross the door of stones, and Zoro had found the man fascinating.

His ideals, his honour, his way of fighting. Zoro had fallen in love with the man almost at first sight. Then had been months of courtship, of passionate hidden kisses and meaningful touches, until finally, they had been unable to keep their hands away from each other. Zoro remembered the happiness, the shining yellow eyes, the smiles and feel of accomplishment, of having discovered the most wonderful thing in the world.

But then his mother had discovered what he had. And had killed Mihawk.

Zoro remembered it, the moment would be engraved in his mind for eternity. He had entered his own palace in the capital, wanting to meet with Mihawk, to spend the night with him, to make him laugh and smile, when he had found his mother looming over the corpse of his beloved. Mihawk had died alone. Without him being able to protect or do anything for him. Gutted. Screaming. _Alone_.

His mother had been covered in blood, Mihawk's eyes had been glazed, his face a grimace of pain. Robin had never been merciful, but that scene had screamed of a sadistic and twisted mind. Robin had made the love of his life suffer, beg...blood, blood had been everywhere.

He would always hate his mother. No matter what she did or said, some things couldn't be forgiven. His memories would never be erased.

He had tried to help Kidd this time as the story repeated itself, he had tried to warn them, to protect Law, he had tried to make them have a happy ending. Not like him with his beloved frozen forever in the hearth of his palace...

Finally stopping in front of a known cell, Zoro glanced at his brother, at the only brother he had cherished above all others. Kidd had never been twisted. He had never killed for power or pleasure. Like him, he had never enjoyed the court.

Kidd was the best of them all. How a god should be.

But seeing him now, chained to the cell, his wrists covered in blood from fighting his ties, his face covered in tears as he repeated Law's name with a broken hoarse voice...it broke something inside Zoro. He had been there too. He had suffered even worse despair. Zoro swore then that he would help his brother, for Kidd and for himself, this time the ending of the story would be very different.

"I will save you" Zoro whispered to his brother "I will protect you both"

Kidd didn't react to his words. Probably he had tired himself screaming. Maybe they had drugged him. Zoro wanted to break the cell and hold this man, this powerful and amazing creation, but the chains around his wrists prevented him from doing anything, the laughing eyes behind his back, around every corner prevented him from showing any weakness yet.

If they knew, if they heard his whispered words, this would be the worst. They would beat the chained Kidd in front of him for his entertainment, for their own amusement. Not yet. He needed to wait.

The trial would be held this same afternoon. In front of the whole court of gods, Kidd would be judged, accused and punished. Gods were still arriving from all parts of the world to attend the event, to see Kidd's shame, to see one of their best being ridiculed.

Zoro turned and walked away. He had to prepare, he had things to think about before the trial was held. He needed to calm down.

...oOo...

The trial was done quickly and with an strange sense of amusement and rejoice. In the throne room of night and stars, with Robin looking over all her thousand children but not participating. An accusation was brought up summing up all of Kidd's sins, they accused him from things in the past, for his disobedience and wilderness, of running away from the court and hiding with Zoro as a weakling. They accused him for things in the future, for what he could have done to them all if they had finished his relationship with the human, of what the humans would have thought, of how their world would have shattered.

Finally, they accused him for what he had done with the mortal.

It was utterly stupid.

Kidd, in the middle of the whole room, with chains covering him, didn't say anything. Zoro suspected he had been drugged, or that some of the mental gods had taken control of his head, subduing his anger and rage. Seeing him so calm and tempered as people screamed, laughed and insulted him, didn't seem right.

The gods who controlled the psyche always made Zoro cringe. The dreams, the thoughts, the aspirations, everything inside a man's head was stripped bare for this cruel beings, sadists that could break you with just a touch of their powers. But there was nothing he could do about it. The tradition and the raw new power Kidd had, made this necessary, the only way to control a second generation.

Ace, by his side on one of the first generation thrones, with his hair braided and his warrior clothes in an immaculate red, had clenched his fist long ago after the trial had started. Now the fire in his eyes was beginning to burn so intently, dangerously. Marco, a second generation like Kidd, was down with the rest of the gods observing the whole process with indifference. Still, Zoro could perfectly see the bird claws where his hands had been and his hair starting to turn blue and alive, merging with the long tunic down his body.

Killer...well, Killer was about to murder someone within minutes.

The trial continued for a while. In the human world it would have taken weeks, but here, in the land of immortals this passed in the blink of an eye.

The moment finally came, and a sentence was decided among the different ranks and powers. It was an important trial, so everyone had a vote on Kidd's punishment, opinions and ideas. Zoro knew what was coming. He had seen it hundreds of times, he had learned about that look in his brothers eyes. The greed, the sadism, the pleasure in seeing another being suffer under them, a life banishing on their wims. The gods had turned into monsters long ago. Abusing power, taking pleasure in seeing another being suffer, it was disgusting.

Kidd meant nothing to them, for almost everyone in this room, he was another form of entertainment. They could kill mortals, the fae, even a few of the lower gods, but Kidd _had power_. This was like drinking the finest wine of them. To kill one of their brothers, one of the powerful ones, was the highest sin, the biggest pleasure.

"We have decided" one of those gods said suddenly, a representative, approaching the silent Kidd with hunger in his eyes but maintaining still some distance. "Kidd will be killed. His limbs will be teared apart from his body with bare hands. His pieces spread all over our world. They will be burned with the hottest flame. He will be thrown into the deepest part of the ocean to be forever forgotten"

Ace at his side tensed. Zoro closed his eyes. So not just death, but humiliation and torture for Kidd, they wanted also to laugh at the first generation, provoke them into this shame too. They had targeted Ace and Zoro because they have been the ones visiting Kidd's jail, but insulting one of them was insulting them all. They wanted to show them how far they could go. How could they do this? How was Robin allowing this? The first generation had always been sacred, they shouldn't be able to cross such a boundary.

When he turned to his mother, she was only regarding Kidd. Her face one of concentration, unmoving, regal, but with a look Zoro understood from long ago. Zoro frowned. Was she the one trying to subdue Kidd? Make him tame? Why? Couldn't the other ones do it, the mental ones? Why was she doing this? Kidd wasn't so powerful, was he?

"Mother" the lesser god repeated with a wicked smile "Do you have some final words for the traitor?" he asked delighted, knowing that now that the sentence had been declared it won't change.

"Eustass Kidd is one of the most powerful gods alive, he had discovered how to recover his old powers and could teach us all to do the same. He is also your family and brother, older and more powerful than most of you. Do you see no other option but murder?" she asked.

The lesser god frowned looking again at Kidd. His eyes turned even more hungry after Robin's words, more desperate for blood and death. Kidd was powerful, Robin was trying to save him which made him a more valuable kill. Zoro observed the greed in the man's eyes as he circled around Kidd and waited for the decision.

They were beyond redemption. Zoro had learned this long ago, but his mother still couldn't see the corruption, couldn't understand what was wrong. Maybe that made her one of them too.

"Yes" the lesser god said eagerly "Kill him, kill him, _kill him mother_!" He almost sounded like a spoiled child.

Robin nodded. Her dark hair a reflection of the night sky. Her blue eyes shining with the light of thousand ancient stars. Her body and face perfection, beauty in its purest form. And yet so cold. So cruel and distant.

"So be it" she announced with an almost remorseful tone "The law is the law, and the sentence has been decided. Eustass Kidd will be erased from this world, his body scattered and hidden away from our sight. We will mourn his loss."

The god giggled happily, watching Kidd. As if he hadn't just sentenced a brother, but found a new toy. They were all so wrong, so corrupted, so sick. Even their mother, Zoro finally realized.

Robin was the law, she could change a punishment, she could stop this chaos, but instead she had chosen to kill Kidd. Instead of listening to reasons, instead of giving him a good trial, she had set up this farce. It was almost as if she also wanted her child's death and had been looking for an excuse. She didn't love them, maybe she had in the past, but now she was as corrupt as the rest.

However, before Zoro could do or say anything to save Kidd, Killer, on the other side of the room, attacked the giggling god.

Killer was a third generation. His power not so huge as theirs but also important, he had always been under Kidd's care since his power depended on Kidd's, so when Kidd lost his power, they had quite a fight. Apparently, that didn't stop their friendship. As Zoro observed, the throne room suddenly was covered with plants. Not natural, not beautiful and delicate, but _deadly_. Thorns the size of a hand, leafs and poisonous flowers that could kill with a touch, strangling ivy, mushrooms with deadly toxins...

All directed to the giggling one. A lesser god of the fifth generation.

As the corpse of the lesser god suddenly fell to the ground -stabbed by dozens of thorns, bleeding and decapitated - silence filled the room.

Robin rose from her throne, her face now one of rage towards Killer who walked to the front of the room as if to face her. A handful of the gods started cheering and clapping, some picked up the severed head and started playing with it, throwing it around the room as if it was a ball and not their brother's head.

Zoro stood too. He couldn't stand this anymore. He needed to save Kidd, take him away from this place, to Law.

Ace, Boa, and Nami suddenly stood with him.

Ace raised a hand and the ones who were playing with the head burst into flames. Killer kept attacking, god after god falling to the ground, unmoving, touched by one of the deadly plants. Nami clenched her fist and the room filled with air, spinning and spinning and fuelling Ace's flames. Boa roared and the earth opened to swallow the body of the offending decapitated man to punish him for his insolence.

Chaos erupted in the room. Screams were heard as the four members that formed the first generation started to attack the rest. They were the elementals, air, fire, water and earth. They controlled the rest, they could shatter continents.

"What is this?" Robin roared besides them surprised. Betrayed. Confused. "Stop! You are killing my children!"

"They are not your children anymore mother, they are monsters" Boa said "It's time you start seeing them for what they are".

"Monster's need to be eradicated from our society" Nami continued the wind playing with her hair. "Otherwise they will destroy it"

"They were laughing, they were laughing while they were going to kill Kidd!" Ace continued "THEIR BROTHER!"

"It's for the best" Zoro finished also raising his ornamented chained hands and calling his power. The power that gave life, the element that all living creatures had, and the one that could kill so easily too.

The world trembled under their fury.

They weren't like their mother. Zoro didn't know if they could defeat her, if they could stop the sickness that had consumed their family, but right now that didn't seem important. Now, together, they were the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for my bad attempt at poetry, as you all can see I'm should stick to narrative instead of poetry. Apart from that I want you guys to understand Robin in case I haven't been clear.   
> She loves her children, the other gods, but she is not seeing how wicked and horrible they are growing up, like a mother loving a horrible spoiled child. She is also not seeing how she is becoming like that too.   
> Zoro and the other first G. do realize how she had changed tho, they had been with her from the beginning and are seeing what she is becoming. Kidd was loved by the the first G, and some other people despite his rebelliousness. Kidd was a good and capable man and the First G. realized this, but he was treated bad at court by the other lesser and more stupid ones that sadly were the majority at court. So he left.   
> Still they are not going to let Kidd, a good one of their brothers die!


	13. Breaking Patience

> " _For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first._ "
> 
> -Donquixote Doflamingo, a year before Trafalgar Law's birth.

 

Law dodged another deadly blow from the sharpened knife and rolled on the green beautiful grass trying to get away from his attacker. The assassin followed him, his posture firm but now angry, his gestures precise and trained despite the prolonged fight. Law was beyond talking him out of the attack, the other four men that had come with this one hadn't listened, so why would this man act differently?

Law finally found his feet under him and jumped up delivering his own attack. The kick connected with the assassins stomach and the man grunted. Law didn't gave him time to think after the initial surprise and punched him right onto the nose, the most fragile bone in the face. Something crunched, and as expected the man huffed as blood covered his face. Instinct taking control, the man raised one hand to his face. Law used the moment to slice the man's throat open with the knife in his other hand which he had stolen from a previous assassin.

The man fell lifeless to the ground and silence surrounded them. Law tried to recover his breath as he stared down at the five bodies now laying around him. If it hadn't been because of his training in the god's world, and the change in the weather who had allowed the swamp to grow into a beautiful forest full of prey and food, Law would have been easy prey to this men, too weak and tired from the journey to fight properly.

He kicked the closest body, turning it face up. The man was wearing black clothes like the rest of them, a cloak covering his foreign face -no local dared to try fight against him nowadays- and hidden weapons. Law had stabbed him through the heart and now the black clothes were beginning to soak with the blood quickly and messily, the arrows and bow he had carried were now useless. Still, it was nothing compared to the decapitated one who was now a puddle of viscera and black blood.

So Law rummaged through the clothing of the stabbed man before it was to late and the blood ruined everything. He eventually found what he was looking for, a little letter from the man who had hired the assassins, there was no name on the envelope, like always, no simbol or signature as this was a dark business and no men would want to leave any prove. But instead there were two simple letters this time: D.D.

_Donquixote Doflamingo._

Law sat down on the grass. In the middle of the idyllic landscape -the green lush forest at his back, the emerald hill of grass sprinkled with flowers in front of him and an open blue sky above- feeling...nothing. He had gone to the land of the gods risking his life because Doflamingo had promised him freedom. _However, he had been planning to kill him from the start_.

The lack of surprise or any betrayed feelings was a surprise in itself.

Law had known it from the start. Doflamingo would never let him go, Law didn't know why, he couldn't understand it, but deep down he had known it. Then why had he gone to the land of the gods in a suicide mission?

' _I had hope'_ a part of his mind supplied ' _Despite everything that had been done to me, despite the tortures and the death, despite me knowing what trusting and hoping again would mean, I hoped that there would be a better place. I still had some stupid hope'_

Law felt numb. Again he had trusted. Again he had been stabbed. Doflamingo had sent assassins despite the promises. The world he had dreamed of had been a frozen evil paramo even gods despised. Even the man he had loved like no one else had been taken away from him in the blink of an eye as if he meant nothing. Like his friends, his family and his life, it had been taken away.

Law expected the hurt, the betrayal and the frustration to come back and attack him like it had always happened before. It will take some hours but Law knew how to keep those feeling under control, how to muffle the pained, hurted screams, and the cries for answers. But this time they didn't come, instead that annoying part of him that never seemed to learn, whispered again.

' _You can find another door. Go back to him. Be happy'_

Hope. Again. Why? Why was always a part of him that searched the light? Why couldn't he learn? Hadn't he been hurt enough? What else did he have to lose? His life? Would that voice shut up when he was dead?

"There is no other door" he said to himself. He couldn't let the hope grow, let the idea start to sprout. He couldn't start a search around the whole island for something he already knew didn't exist. Doflamingo had tried to kill him. He had better things to do.

' _You don't actually know it. There could be another door'_ the voice whispered again, low, alluring, like a stubborn child that won't accept the harsh reality.

Law suddenly found himself crying.

Not like the other times when the pain had overwhelmed his barriers and he had doubled over in his bed trying to relieve it. This weren't the tears of one of his rage attacks when he destroyed the room he was staying in out of frustration. No, this time it felt warm, good and calming, as if a weight had been taken away from his shoulders.

"There could be another door" such a simple imposible thing. Like entering the lands of gods. Like falling in love with Kaliarte the deadly goddess. Like bringing the sun back. Like surviving five assassins on your own with no weapons.

Law had done so many impossible things.

Hope was such a stupid thing. Yet it was so wonderful. Law stood up and looked up at the sun, at the warmth, at the shine, at the gift Kidd had given him. Then he started walking.

He would find the door. Even if it took him the rest of his life, even if it didn't exist, Law would spend every hour of his time trying to get back to Kidd, the man who meant so much to him. But first, there were things he needed to do, problems he needed to face, answers he needed to find.

And people, who needed to disappear from this world.

...oOo...

Shanks entered his private office with Luffy sulkin behind him. He lived with his wife in one of the small houses in the outskirts of the city of Inverness, capital of the North. The house was a two-story building made of resistant black rock to stand the cold unpleasant weather, and warm caramel wood that had costed more than it should. Makino, his wife, had fallen in love with the house at first sight and had soon made it a home with flowers, fluffy carpets, and the beautiful screams of a baby. Despite the small size of the building and his new little family starting to live in it, Shanks had also enough space in it to direct his merchant business all over the world and at the same time, spy on the other members of the assembly.

The main reason why Luffy, his dear assistant and adopted son, was sulking behind him.

Shanks mood wasn't much better. Things were getting out of control in the city, it was more than obvious now that Doflamingo controlled the assembly. At first he had had doubts about Crocodile or Aokiji but it was clear now that the two men had forged some kind of alliance with Doflamingo on their own and were supporting him, and together, they were all destroying the little piece of earth humans still retained.

Doflamingo was abusing his power, imposible taxes, increase in the price of the most simple and necessary items like bread or soap, public executions of men who had done nothing but whisper a few things. Fear was starting to take hold in the population, and from his own experience, Shanks knew what that fear could turn into, just so easily.

Shanks sat on his desk and ran his hands through his hair feeling exhausted from the fight that was yet to come. What could he do? He was just a man with no voice now in the assembly full of enemies. He also had no military power, he was just a merchant. Maybe it was time to abandon his utopic dreams and go back to the countryside. His family would be happy there, and more importantly, safe.

Luffy on the other side of the room looked at him worried. He had adopted the boy from the streets a few years ago, Makino called him 'his first son' and Shanks couldn't disagree. He could escape with Makino and the child, but Luffy won't come with him. The boy didn't surrender, he was even more stupid and idealistic than Shanks himself, he would stay and fight for what was right.

Shanks was so proud of the boy.

It was then that the window of the office bursted open and a cloaked figure entered the room surrounded by the mists that never left these lands near the river. Luffy gasped at the intrusion, but Shanks reacted out of instinct. If someone had sent assassins to kill him, he would protect his family and all he had fought for, he would go down fighting!

The figure however did nothing and didn't try to attack him, he just rose his hands in a placating gesture and took his hood off, revealing a well-know face.

Trafalgar Law.

Luffy gasped again, but was soon running to hug the lone and dangerous boy as the friends they had been, with a huge grin on his face. Shanks however just stared at the boy disbelievingly. It was a miracle. He had tried to stop the stupid mission, he had tried to stop the assassins, placate Doflamingo, finally he had just assumed the boy dead.

But here he was. Alive. Unscratched. Having accomplished what no one would have dared posible. He was a miracle, their miracle, the man who should be sitting on the throne reigning this city, the true hero of Inverness who had risked his life for the people of this land.

He could also become the lightning match Shanks had feared so much he would come. The reason the crowds of the city could stop feeling fearful and would become violent. Law was now a simbol, a man who had survived even death.

"You have come back" Shanks said to the boy feeling something similar to relief despite his worries. Luffy hadn't been the only boy of the streets he had wanted to adopt, but unlike Luffy, Law had always be a lone boy, a boy with eyes to old for his age and something dark looming behind them.

Still, he had been a boy.

Shanks walked forward and hugged the boy like a father hugs a son. Law returned the hug easily, something they had done several times. Law curiously looked even better now after the trip, his body fuller, as if he had been eating well, his muscled toned, and his eyes still dark but with a spark of fire that hadn't been there before. He ha become the man he was supposed to be.

For the second time in the night, Shanks felt pride overwhelm him and gratefulness made him smile.

"I have too many questions to ask" and by the look in his son's eyes, Luffy also had a few questions himself "However, I would only ask you one. Why? Why have you returned? You could have escaped, we thought you were dead" he asked with a serious tone.

Shanks had been trying to protect the boy from Doflamingo for years, but the man seemed to have an obsession with the boy.

Law's eyes darkened, but unlike other times, fear didn't appear in them as it used to at the mention of Doflamingo. Instead a strange calmness and acceptance appeared in them. A cold horrible acceptance Shanks didn't like one bit.

"I have business I need to finish with Doflamingo first. A few questions that need answering" his mind seemed set, a plan already formed. Shanks couldn't help but be amazed by the sudden security and almost royal air that surrounded Law.

' _The boy should be our king'_ Shanks thought again surprised, now seriously.

Still, it was Doflamingo they were talking about, he couldn't let Law face him again, he couldn't stand to see him broken again, or even worse, dead. Not now when the world was about to crumble, not when his memory would be used as a martir and as a beginning for a war.

"He tried to kill you Law, don't be stupid, escape, we can help you, he still doesn't know you are here, right?" he asked the boy taking him by the arm. Luffy was beginning to look worried and also had that stubborn look in his eyes, the one that had helped him survive on the streets, the one that made him Law's friend.

Law however pushed Shanks's hand away and faced him with his expressionless face now filled with something dark. "Yeah, he tried to kill me, several times, and I'm sure he would try again." he said making Shanks cringe at the tone "But I'm done, Shanks. I done running away. I need to face him. _I need answers_ "

For a little short moment, Shanks could see the future in the grey eyes of the boy with a certainty that scared him. He could see the confrontation of the two of them, the shouts and hate between the boy and the king, he could see Law dead on the royal floor stabbed by one of Doflamingo assassins or Doflamingo himself. He saw the revolution that would come, the destruction and chaos. He saw humanity perishing once again.

He needed to stop it. But how? Law was not going to change his opinion, his revenge plan. Shanks saw it with the same clarity as he saw the future. He could only help him defeat Doflamingo, take down the evil king that was threatening with destroying the city himself.

Shanks sat on his desk again surrendering. This was his answer, what he should do. Luffy was grinning for some reason and looking dangerously pleased at Law. Law was just waiting, his expression as unreadable as always. He had always been so intelligent, this boy that had the soul of a king.

"What do you need?" Shanks finally asked.

...oOo...

Law walked among the streets with his head held high and whispers surrounding him. It was plain midnight, normal families were usually at home, but on the poorest streets of the city, sleep was a commodity not many dared to have. The vagabonds and prostitutes pointed at him and whispered to their companions with big eyes. Drunk mercenaries and the worst people from the streets of Inverness just smirked at him and gave him finger ups, as if they were proud of him. Law had worked with many of them and had lived with them all on the streets, so yeah, this were his people. They knew who he was and his history, they knew what he has done, and they knew that he was back now.

And if they knew, so would Doflamingo's men.

Law had been doing this for a few days, walking on the streets on plain sight and then mysteriously disappearing. Spreading rumors, lies and truths with the help of Shanks and his organization. People were curious about him, guards had tried to capture him a few times and failed pathetically, but now, Inverness was aware of his miraculous survival and what he had done for them. And they were also becoming aware of how their leader was not acknowledging any of that.

If Doflamingo was not going to give him what he rightfully deserved, Law would humiliate him in revenge. He would make him pay and ruin his opportunity to rule over this land, he would make the people hate him so much that he would have to get out of this town if he wanted to survive.

He would also make the man unable to refuse his demands and questions.

Disappearing from the sight of another patrol of royal knights who were not so subtly following him, Law mingled with the night. He wore his weapons today, he had gone back to his several hidden places all over the town and retrieved weapons and all he needed. He was wearing assassin clothes today, black on black, silent boots and weapons that will slice a man's throat without waking his lover.

Today was the night.

Law walked among the streets and over houses, getting to the center of the town and the royal palace overlooking the river. Mist curled from the river and covered the town as it always did, but from up in the castle, Law could spot the bell towers of the church and the towers of the castle above the sea of clouds.

There was a known window in the royal alcoves that was lit despite the hour. Law took a deep breath and entered the room.

As always the royal chambers were decorated with luxury, fluffy beds of silks and cotton, polished floors and exotics woods, and all kind of extravagant furniture. As a child, the palace had always impressed Law, so much gold in such plain sight, so easy to steal and escape with and yet left untouched. It spoke of a new kind of power. However, after the visit to the lands of the gods, this place looked like a poor attempt at luxury. The walls were made of black unpleasant rocks not polished glass that overlooked the ocean, the light were mundane candles not exotic creatures swimming beyond, there wasn't an old ancient and mysterious library, no swords of legends hanging on the walls as decorations. It was just too plain.

And the man amid it all was not really a king, but a man trying to take that place and doing a pretty bad job at it.

Donquixote Doflamingo hadn't changed one bit since the last time Law had seen him. As a man who had know wealth all his life, he was tall and nicely built. He had blond hair and blue eyes as the kings and princes of the stories, but his eyes were mean and cruel, his smile making you feel worthless and dirty.

Law had been scared of the man when he was a child, he had cried in bed scared of the nightmares the man inspired. Now, after facing Zoro and Kidd, two _really big_ and imposing men, two true nightmares, Doflamingo looked like a man too easy to stab.

The man finally realized his presence and got up from his chair behind a desk filled with papers, in a surprised motion. He was wearing some kind of long pajama robe that looked ridiculous on him despite the fine embroidery, and had no weapon he could use in sight.

Law perched on the window and said nothing, but still, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction and amusement at the man's sudden uneasiness and ridiculous appearance. The unseasiness hadn't been there before. Doflamingo still smiled with that annoying big smile, but now it seemed weirdly forced.

Was he scared of him?~ Law couldn't stop a crazed smile of his own.

"Hello _your highness_ " he said mockingly. Using the honorary he had been forced to use when a child. The brutal beatings he had received when he made a mistake with the name still clear in his mind " I think we need to talk"

He threw five ears on the floor he had taken from the assassins out in the swamp.

Doflamingo stared at him, turning even more pale. Still he smiled back uncaring and with the gesture, he seemed to get his bearings under control again. He straightened, he looked tall and imposing, he found again that annoyed glare he always used, as if the blood and mutilation had remained him of something.

"Law!" He said as if surprised "I see you are back, I have been waiting for you" he smiled evilly, then he snapped his fingers once and ten men entered the room in quick succession.

Seven guards armed with the royal armors and long straight swords jumped first standing between the king and him. Two mercenaries Law had worked with before and knew about their brutality. And an assassin with short black hair that had enjoyed beating him when he was a child. Vergo, another of his nightmares.

Law jumped down from the window and fully entered the room with a bored uncaring face. The ten men stepped back as if scared and Law couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of all this.

Then, he let the fun start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, but I am done trying to publish this thing on time. I will do it when I have time, sorry guys, try to understand and be patient. As you can see we are arriving at the end of the fic, I hope you are liking the story and where it is going. The fun part would start now, for both, u guys and me. XD


	14. Point of no return

 

> “ _The greatest and most powerful revolutions often start very quietly,_
> 
> _hidden in the shadows. Always remember that my dear.”_
> 
> _-Law’s mother to his father._
> 
>  

The capital of the immortal world exploded into chaos with the same effect of a stone dropped in a calm pond. Suddenly, among streets of wonders and magic, gods fighted against gods with powers never seen before, brothers were killed at the hands of fathers, fairies and slaves tried to run away from the massacre as the whole power of the divine world seemed to finally unleash in a final outburst. The holy land trembled, the sky obscured under angry clouds, fires ignited, and winds and vegetation crawled over each other trying to claim their victims.

The capital shattered. The god’s millennial rule crumbled. The universe cried.

And among it all there was the beautiful and terrible queen seated on her throne of nightmares and galaxies. Laughter escaped from her mouth between her perfect white teeth, joy shone vivid in her beautiful violet eyes as her children died in front of her, as her court went to war against itself and her whole world seemed to come to and end.

Robin, immortal queen of everything and everywhere, _rejoiced_.

Because this was what she remembered and what she had longed for: the power. The thrill of battle, the screams of panic, people crawling at her feet covered in blood and viscera, the haunted looks, that horrified certainty in the eyes of people about to die...oh dear, how much she had missed it. How much had she missed Zoro, her little deadly warrior with his raw absolute power, he had always known how to wake her from the brokenness of her eternal life and make the world vivid with the beautiful red of blood.

She clapped with her hands when her little boy tore apart another of her children with a mere flick of his finger, the body falling to his fet with a scream of agony, and crumbling into dust as if dried out. Robin sighed seeing him advance to another victim, so strong and handsome with his armor covered in red and his eyes intent, so calm and confident in his victory. He had always been so powerful, so beautiful, and loyal, at least until the darkness had claimed him and made him leave her side.

Robin’s smile faded as she saw his beautiful son turn away from the delightful masacre to help the beast of red hair still chained on the floor. The boy that had been condemned by her court for betraying her and falling in love with a human. Kidd had always been handsome and beautiful too despite not being one of the first generation. Robin had been able to see the potential in him, the rage, rebellion and thirst of blood. She had waited so much from him too.

But he had also abandoned her for a mortal.

Fire roared fed by a desert wind, plants crawled over the walls strangling their victims and devouring their bodies, rocks twisted to be shaped anew on the floor and walls, the throne room changing and changing again with the power of her children and their gift. Kidd and Zoro stood in the middle of the chaos, clapping each others arm like old friends, and smiling at one another...then they both turned towards her, handsome, perfect, powerful and with a hate in their eyes that made her blood stop in her veins from sadness.

Robin stood up from her dark throne, her posture regal, ancient, beautiful, and so, so sad. Still, no one seemed to pay attention to her besides her dear little boys who tensed. Everybody kept fighting their battles in this old palace. Fire, winds, vines. Wrecking, destroying, changing.

She had wanted to prevent this. She had wanted to watch her beautiful sons and daughters grew and mature under her care, she had given all to them, her love, wisdom, and power, expecting them to be happy and love her back. She had sacrificed for them what no mother would have sacrificed for a son: centuries, races, empires have fallen for them, trying to protect them from the humans. Clearly, it hadn’t been enough.

Now she had to kill them.

Zoro and Kidd had been corrupted by the humans, too corrupted now to see reason. Robin had tried to save them, give them a chance to gain her love back, to come back to their senses, but it was now clear that they would have to die for the sake of their brothers. Robin would not tolerate the illness to spread, she would not allow humans to contaminate her lovely family.

She was a mother ready to kill her children. Her two most beloved sons. The monsters they had turned into. It was a sad thing, a horrible thing no mother should ever need to do, but still _she couldn’t feel anything_. No mourning, no pain, nothing grew in her chest as she approached her beloved warrior pair. It made her stop for a little second confused. She loved Zoro, she loved Kidd, they were her most beautiful children and still...nothing?

Her two boys approached her, distracting her thoughts. Their powers were intact despite the illness spreading in this land, leaving her other children useless. Their swords were at the ready, shining with her face on the sharp edge, deadly weapons in her warriors’ hands. And their eyes were hateful, with no regret, no shame, no sorrow for raising against their creator.

Robin raised a hand. The decision taken.

Darkness covered the world. The stars on her palace spread over each corner, galaxies seemed to coalesce around her, plunging the rest of the world into a deep empty darkness. The universe trembled. Her sons stopped fighting turning towards her horrified.

Robin closed her eyes and breathed pure power, her veins filled with the light of supernovas, her skin glowing with the radiance of a thousand suns. She was the goddess of all gods. The queen of immortals. This world was hers to command, to change, to correct.

Shadows spread on her dark world, blackness and coldness filling every corner of the city and making every little creature cry in fear and the knowledge of a certain death. She opened her eyes and looked at their sons with eyes that looked into two worlds at the same time, this one and the one beyond. The calm, cold, and peaceful world beyond.

She was the queen of queens for a very simple reason, a reason that had made her enemies tremble and the world kneel at her presence: she was the end of all things, the goddess of death, the mother of all the rest.

She was Anguta, absolute and whole.

“I am sorry for what I must do” she said with a voice that was not a voice but a whisper of things that had once been “But it needs to be done”.

She released the power in her veins, and screams filled the world.

 

...oOo…

 

Law plunged his old long dagger into the eye of another soldier and turned to face the last mercenary clad in royal purple as the man’s body fell to the ground. Several corpses lay around him on the ground, decapitated, stabbed, maimed and now, growing cold. Their blood kept staining the wooden floors and carpets turning the fight slippery and complicated, but Law persisted. He had fought under worse situations after all.

The alarm had been raised a few moments ago, angry shouts on the corridor as a man ran away from the room, and the horn calling to arms sounding clean and deep in the foggy Inverness night, but Law didn’t care. Below him, on the lower parts of the castle, Shanks, Luffy and hundreds of men would be trying to get into the palace, fighting the city guards and the armies from Doflamingo in a strike that might change the shape of the world.

Still, the rest of the castle would be busy trying to fend off the attack from Shanks, no one else was going to come save Doflamingo from his fate. The guards he had gathered to attack Law had been perishing one after another. Doors had been locked, servants bribed, stairs collapsed. There was no way in and no way out. Doflamingo was going to answer to him and he was going to pay for his crimes now and forever.

The last man standing, the mercenary wearing purple, looked at him with care, his eyes scanning every little movement Law made, every breath, every flinch. He was scared, Law could see it in the sweat on his forehead and in the little tremble of his fingers on the sword. Law had killed a dozen of trained soldiers with a mere dagger and now was coming for him. Still, that fear made the mercenary dangerous, since a corralled man could fight with the strength of thousands in his desperation.

Law also eyed Doflamingo pressed against the desk and away from the fighting. His face was now pale, the fight taking place between him and the door not allowing him to escape, obliging him to see the killing. His lips were now pressed in a thin line as his eyes fixed on a body, his clothes were stained red from the blood on the floor, even his knuckles were white from gripping the table.

The mercenary attacked. A strange desperation on his eyes as he threw himself at Law with the sword raised point first. Law drew back, grabbed Vergo’s head from the floor and threw it at the man. The man shrieked in fear and tried to get away from the trajectory of the head, but Law was there, anticipating the move and plunging the knife deep between the man’s ribs.

The body fell to his feet, gurgling blood and not moving again, a grimace of surprise fixed forever on his face.

Law breathed, the concentration and thrill from the fight flying away and leaving him numb, covered in blood and feeling so, so dirty and stained. Still, he knelt in the puddle of blood on the floor and cleaned his dagger on the man’s clothes before sheathing it and turning to face the man who still tormented his nightmares.

Doflamingo looked at him intently, pale and breathing hard, with sweat covering his regal handsome features, but, like always, hiding his fear and disbelief under and amused and arrogant smirk. He knew Law was going to kill him. The bodies of his guards a testimony to this, but he still glared at him as if Law was a stain on this world as if Law needed to kill himself for the sake of this world.

“You lost” Law proclaimed, his voice empty of all feelings. Numb, he felt so very numb. “The citizens, church and even the nobles now repudiate your reign of darkness and corruption. You won’t live to see the sun rise again, _his majesty_ ”

The sounds of the battle were growing, the warm light of fires illuminating the room from the window as the riots growed outside. Swords clashing echoed in the room, screams and anger now clear in the air as the smell of burned things reached the tower where they were. Still Doflamingo just grasped his hands behind himself in a regal pose and smiled at him with confidence.

“Is that so?” he asked amused.

Law frowned, clenching his fist, wanting to draw the dagger again and finish this for once. Doflamingo chuckled watching him, a false frustrated laugh that soon changed into a grimace of disgust. He turned slightly and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the desk removing the cork of and throwing it away.

He walked to the window drinking the whole thing with a strange necessity, the fire illuminating his pale bloodied ropes and making him look like one of those kings from the old stories of the creation of the world. Savage beasts that bathed in blood.

“She knew this would happen. That’s why she ordered me to kill you. I understand it now. That stupid goddess!” he said with his voice hoarse from the whiskey, smashing the bottle on the floor with a loud creak “The moment I let you run away from the palace unharmed I knew I had made a mistake”

He turned again to face Law. Anger in every line of his body. This wasn’t a man who had been defeated. This was a mean ready to strike the killing blow. Law frowned confused as Doflamingo advanced towards him with a dark glint in is eyes, his smile now cruel and final.

“Do you know why I have always hated you so much, Law?” he asked, walking around him like a tiger ready to attack his prey, his feet splashing in the blood from the ground, the burning city and cries of terror turning his pacing macabre.

“Cos you are a psycho?” Law commented, his hand again on the hilt of his dagger, ready for any trick.

Doflamingo growled. Then he approached and invaded Law’s personal space, his breath smelling of alcohol, his eyes remembering Law of thousands of beatings, of blood and cries for help from an innocent boy who couldn’t understand what was happening.

Doflamingo smiled. Knowing his thoughts with the same precision as Law. Exploiting his fears and terrors. Law’s blood froze in his veins unable to help it. He was no child, not anymore. He clenched his fist and glared back at the man, trying to calm himself.

“Do you know who your parents were, Law? Do you even know who you are?” Doflamingo whispered against his mouth smiling cruelly, his voice a caress of delight and love, like that of a caring parent for his child.

Law felt his whole body tremble, fear, and the insecurities from an orphan boy growing up in the streets rising again. How many times had he asked himself that question? How much had he feared the answer? Then came the anger. Hot and warm, a feeling so intense that made him clench his teeth from the power of it.

He grabbed Doflamingo by a shoulder and smashed a fist against his smirking face. The man fell to the floor and Law went with him, straddling his hips and punching his face as the blond man started to laugh like crazy.

“You don’t know anything” Doflamingo laughed again, his face bloody, his nose broken, and blood, so much blood everywhere “Always such a stupid boy, so manipulable and naive, but always so hard to kill!”

“Shut up!” Law answered him, not stopping punching him “Shut up!!”

Doflamingo tried to fight him off between laughs, trying to defend himself, but he was a king and no warrior, so Law just punched him again, his head making an ugly sound as it hit the floor again and again. Doflamingo groaned, his eyes turning dizzy, but he still smiled.

Law breathed after a while, his pulse a quick rhythm in his ears, his fist bloodied and breath ragged. He felt numb, so fucking numb, as if he was stopping to exist, as if he was disappearing into numbness.

They both stared at each other.

A hate that had lasted decades now raw in their eyes. Law’s walls completely lowered down, his soul and body feeling raw and tender in the numbness. His friends, the loneliness, the fear, the pain of decades of abuse, now itching against the scars under his tattoos, the only way he had found to hide the horror.

“Your mother looked at me with the same eyes” Doflamingo whispered suddenly “No matter what I said or did, she always refused and despised me. Unlike your father she didn’t insult me or cried the night I raped her and killed the two of them, and took their place as the sovereign of this city”

Law closed his eyes. He breathed. In. Out. Deep.

 

...oOo...

Zoro ran. He had been running for what seemed like hours but could have been minutes. Time felt weird right now, as if some moments were stretching too much and others drawing short. The whole world now shimmering in black looked weird too, the silence too deep, the cries traumatizing, the panic in his blood increasing, and so, he kept running.

He could feel Kidd behind him, and Ace, and Boa, and Nami, all of them running too, trying to get away from the palace and into the streets of the city. Away from her and her terrible deadly power, but he knew they would be found eventually, she was absolute, perfection, the world her playground. Nothing could escape death. No one could escape from her gaze, he could feel it now, on the back of his neck, hateful and intent.

Minutes passed. Darkness increased. The screams grew louder. _She was so close_. _They were all going to die, she would murder them slowly, they would..._

Zoro stopped running suddenly. Something inside him suddenly snapping in anger. He stopped gasping for breath next to the destroyed house of a dead god, the rest of the group stopping next to him confused.

Zoro looked at them, and then, for the first time since they had gotten out of the palace, he looked around.

The city wasn’t there anymore, as if suddenly devoured by darkness it had disappeared leaving nothing behind. The sky, the ground, the same air seemed to have disappeared and been substituted by blackness. Groups of people ran together in the darkness trying to survive, gods, fae, all together, trying to fight the shadows that appeared from nothingness and devoured them in seconds. And above them all, hight in the middle of that deep nightmare a figure rose. Brighter than the stars and a hundred suns, she observed them all with eyes that were inhuman, immortal, cruel.

The end.

Zoro looked at his brothers around him. Kidd, Nami, Ace...the ones that had been fighting in the throne room now looking defeated or terrified. Nami’s arm was now black, a grimace on her face as she gripped it and the skin and fingers crumpled away like burned ash. Ace kept looking behind him seeming to be looking for someone, a terror on his face that Zoro knew pretty well. Kidd on the other hand was carrying Killer on his shoulders with a determined look on his face...

Zoro looked again at the desolated place that had been once a place of wonders. He looked at his defeated family, at the darkness surrounding everything but a figure, at the stupid lost and chaos... At the world ending, and them all dying with it.

Like they deserved it.

Nami whimpered next to him and Zoro tensed. No, that was not true. They deserved to live too, not all of them were evil, some of them were still wonders, beautiful and strong. He could see it in Kidd’s will to fight for a lost cause, in Ace’ look of desperation as he looked for his lost lover of blond hair, at Nami’s wound she had taken to protect a child, in Boa’s tight lips of anger. Some of them deserved to live. Like the humans. Like a man of golden eyes and black hair that had once given him his heart only to have it frozen in a room under the deep blue ocean.

Zoro dropped his sword. He won’t run again.

Walking slowly, he jumped into a piece of blackness that could have been a column once, a rock or the roof of a house. He fixed his mother with a glare and raising his voice he proclaimed what was burning in his chest.

“This is your fault” he said to the monster that had once been his mother, the monster that now stood in darkness killing her children “You have brought the end of our race, mother, this is only _your fault_ ”

His voice boomed over the darkness, carrying away in the emptiness like a wave of the sea, making the faces of every god and fae still alive focus on him with a surprised face. Making the haunting eyes of a monster of light and cruelty focus on him with a sense of victory.

Zoro was too angry and frustrated to feel terrified.

“In you fear of them you separated our worlds, the human and immortal one. You destroyed the source of our power and reason, you have killed our family” he accused in the darkness, at the end of his immortal life, facing death with courage and resolution.

Zoro had known from the start that they couldn’t run away, not from her. If they were to win this war, they could only fight.

“ _Lies”_ the sound of her voice sounded inside his mind, too powerful and vast to stand, to ancient and dark to bear.

Whimpers filled the sudden silence, his brothers looking at him terrified, sure of his ending. Zoro didn’t care, he just didn’t give a fuck anymore. He hadn't given a damn about his life since his heart had died with that of a mortal.

“It’s true!” Zoro repeated “Why do you think Kidd and I are the only ones with our power still intact? Who are the only ones who had have contact with mortals for the last five eons? We need the mortals, breaking us apart from them only killed us!”

“ _Lies!”_ her mother screamed.

Shadows rose around him trying to engulf him, trying to silence him for eternity. His mother was killing him. Zoro closed his eyes. Memories and feelings of an immortal life filled his mind. His mother giving him his first sword and teaching him how to fight in a field of white little flowers. His mother braiding Nami’s hair under a willow tree. His mother hugging him as he returned from his first battle covered in blood from his family, pride in her eyes. His mother on her throne listening to the words of a girl who could see a dark future. His mother killing mortals with a hateful look in her eyes. Her mother closing the borders and not listening to his advice. His mother’s pleas for him to come back...His mother discovering his secret and his lover.

Blood. Sadness. Ice under the ocean.

The deep sad knowledge.

Zoro summoned his own power. The power he hadn’t used since he had met a mortal that had kissed him as if he was the water he needed to drink. The power that had only kept growing and evolving since that horrible day as if gifted by his beloved.

The darkness retreated as ice so cold it burned, closed around it. Water started to bubble from the ground, higher and higher, drowning the blackness in seconds, erasing it and cleaning the world, engulfing each living thing that was still standing.

Zoro breathed deep, feeling alive for the first time in eons. The coolness of the ocean and the creatures living in it, calming a burn that had persisted way to long. It was time to end this. It was time to die, to free the ocean, to free the soul of a mother he no longer recognized.

It was time to met with Mihawk again.

His mother screamed looking at him and launching herself at him with the force of colliding stars and planets on her hands, a viciousness in her immortal shining eyes that made Zoro want to cry in mourning.

He smashed her to the seas below with a little flick of his power.

People all around them gasped surprised. Shocked. Mother was absolute, indestructible. He was just a god. How could he even hit her? The monster looked at him confused too, she looked at the sea now circling around her surprised, as if she couldn’t understand how he had been able to punch her.

“I said the truth mother” he explained, his voice now clear like water from the lakes up in the mountains “Mortals give us power. I have met them, I have loved them and I have lost them. You haven’t. For longer than I can remember you haven’t even glimpsed in their direction”

He raised a hand and her mother fell to her knees with lightning escaping from a bloodied lip.

“I am stronger than you now” he said.

The gazed of the people around them shifted. Glee, understanding and horror drawing on their faces. The evidence now clear, unrefusable. Soon their expressions quickly changed into something else suddenly. Rage. Anger. All towards their dear ancient mother.

‘ _This is your fault’_ Zoro thought sadly _‘You have pushed us into this. You have brought the end with your paranoia. I will miss you dearly, mother’_


	15. The End

 

 

> _“The last to fall were the buildings,_
> 
> _distant and solemn,_
> 
> _the gravestones for an entire world.”_
> 
> _-old paining in a cave wall_

 

 

“You are lying” Law said with a tense voice, his mind on the verge of snapping after Doflamingo’s horrible words.

No, he would not break, he would not believe this man’s lies and tricks, he would not fall when Kidd was waiting for him in a land of dreams and magic. _Doflamingo was lying_. Law’s parents just couldn’t be the old Kings of Inverness, the throne had been handed over to Doflamingo after the last King had died without a heir, Doflamingo had been the most powerful man by then, it had been a pacific change of powers, expected, no blood had been shed.

That’s what the mocking soldiers had told Law in one of the beatings, when Law had wondered out loud how such a man could have become king and had so many followers. The soldiers had laughed as they kicked at the boy, rejoicing in his whimpers, they had recapitulated the story, how the city had celebrated, how Doflamingo was the rightful ruler of these lands.

Law trembled, suppressing the memories and the feel of impotence. Doflamingo looked at him from under him with regretful eyes, with a sadness that Law had never seen in him before. He raised a hand to caress Law’s face with soft delicate fingers, tracing the shape of a cheek and the corner of his eyes.

“You have the same face as her, the same eyes” the blond man said with bloody lips after Law’s beating “I couldn’t kill you that night, no matter the prophecies and the things that goddess told me, you were the last thing I had from her. You were the boy we could have had, had she not chosen you pitiful father instead of me”

Law found himself shaking, tears now falling down his horrified eyes and into Doflamingo fingers. The family he had hated so much for abandoning him to such destiny, to such a monster, now exposed and redemned. His parents had loved each other, _they had loved him_ , he hadn’t been an outcast, but a prince. The hate, the beatings, the smirks...it all made so much sense now.    

“You are lying” he whispered again, a part of his soul breaking apart despite his attempts to fix it for Kidd. This couldn’t be true. Law would not survive this truth, this completely change on his background and perspective was just too much.

“I killed her for her betrayal” Doflamingo said still caressing his face with cold broken fingers, wiping the tears from his eyes as a father does with his son “I’ll have to kill you too for yours, Law. She broke my heart, but I won’t let you break my kingdom, the only thing I have left”

The knife lodged between Law’s ribs with the skill and precision of a man who had done this before several times. Law gasped in surprise, his mind shocked by the news, the attack, everything, the pain unable to penetrate the madness in it to warn him. The metalic taste of blood rose to his mouth and slipped between his lips.  Doflamingo raised from under him, gripping Law’s arm to keep him in place and twisting the blade further into Law’s heart, his eyes crying, his grip firm on his arm.

“I am sorry, my love” he whispered to a ghost, looking at Law’s eyes but seeing another person “For taking so long to kill your tainted child”

Law tried to raise his hands at last, a final twist to kill this crazed monster, save this land, and ask for forgiveness from his family in the beyond. Justice was so close. Redemption would taste so sweet. But his heart lay in pieces, his body dying, his mind shattered, and his strength, it just slipped away. His vision started to cloud, like the sky on the other side of the window, like the world suddenly ending.

Doflamingo kissed his forehead. Law couldn’t do anything to stop him, he coughed blood on his cheek.

“It’s time to finish this, to lay the past behind, to become what I must become.”

Law fell to the ground as Doflamingo threw him away and stood up with crazed determined eyes. Law felt cold, so very cold. He observed Doflamingo steps going away, beyond the door and into the blocked corridor. He could do nothing to stop him, to avenge his family, the people of this country, or even himself. In everything in his life he had failed. In his surviving. In protecting his friends. In loving Kidd. In avenging his family. He was useless. Maybe it was better for him to die. Maybe it was better for Kidd to lose him and find another.

He closed his eyes unable to breathe anymore.

He had failed.

 

...oOo...

 

Kidd felt the pain. He had felt the pain a lot of times before in his immortal life, physically, mentally, in so many ways, but this time, it felt different. Agonizing. Timeless. As if a limb had been severed forever, as if a part of him had ceased to exist only to leave behind a broken empty hole. A hole so deep and hungry that it would consume the rest of his whole being.

_Law had died._

Kidd tried to breathe as waves of pain crawled over his skin like razors sinking into it and deep into a soul that was again starting to freeze. Law had died and the warmth, the light, the star that guided him in the dark this last weeks had disappeared. The only thing that he had ever loved and needed had disappeared and gone to a place he could not follow as an immortal.

For a moment he tried to fight the blackness that loomed above him, the loneliness spreading over his mind, the rip in his soul. But Law was dead and he lost the fight against the pain. The empty hole teared at him, needing to be filled, and Kidd broke into tiny pieces under the force of it.

Kidd screamed into water and opened his eyes to the world, looking directly at Death.

She had always been beautiful, with dark hair and shining eyes, with flowing dressed and loving smiles. Now, fighting against her own son, her most powerful warrior, she looked like the Queen she was: full of power and rage as she destroyed the last remnants of the world she had created and her family.

Kidd was barely aware of other people being there. Zoro with the raising ocean around him, Ace and his burning fire, Marco soaring in the sky, Killer injured at his side...but he only had eyes for Death’s smile.

_She had killed Law._

Kidd knew it. Even now, broken, shattered, useless, he understood it had been her fault. He didn’t knew how, he didn’t knew when, but Law was dead because of her. The certainty was as clear as the pain in his veins, as the sun in the sky and as the end of the world.

The empty hole in his chest, the shattered pieces of himself, the thing that had once been a god, screamed in madness, _needing_ revenge. They vibrated with frozen loss, with a sadness so deep that the rain would forever reign in the world in consequence. Kidd lost reason, he lost himself, he only had one purpose to guide him now.

To kill her.

He invoked the power, every last bit of it. From the air, from the sun, from his blood and his very cells. An amount so big that it began to tear him apart and rip at the fundations of the world. Then, he freed it forever from it’s cage to plunge the world with hungry floods, angry hurricanes and frozen paramos. He didn’t care about the destruction it would cause. Life and the people didn’t mattered anymore.

 _Law was dead_.

In madness, in agony, at the end of his life Eustass Kidd, god of weather, attacked his mother knowing he would die this time in the collision.

 

...oOo…

 

Robin saw her redheaded son snap, and realized she had committed a huge mistake. Power blinded her senses as Kidd summoned chaos and focused on her. Then, Robin saw Zoro attack her too, with the same violence, with the same wild madness as Kidd, and knew she couldn’t fight them both. Not like this. Not with them pushed to their very limits, not with them prepared to kill themselves so they could kill her too.

She had miscalculated thinking no god would be stupid enough to commit the final sacrifice and kill themselves for the sake of the rest. Gods were egotistical, didn’t care for others, didn’t _feel_.

Under her, the sea roared, a monster prepared to tear her intro shreeds, the power in it so violent and vengeful that the universe trembled under it. Above her the sky turned and shifted, a huge hurricane begin to form between the lightning, ready to strike at her. The shape of the world was beginning to crumble around them three, unable to stand such force.

Between such phenomena Robin’s power felt small. Weakened, passionless...fragile. She remembered the old fear as the prophecy became clear in her mind, and her two sons release the power in a sudden last blast. 

_“A mortal will come in the darkest of times._

_Royal blood in his veins. Nasty scars on his hands”_

She had ordered the Trafalgar’s bloodline to be killed years ago. After the Vinsmokes. After the Skypeans, Nefetari's and so many others. As the heirs of the Seven Lords who had been blessed by her at the beginning of times, and been the first humans to walk the world, this families had been the only ones who had ruled in mortal realm for as long as her. Their blood was so old that it mixed with that of gods and magic becoming something dangerous.

She had known when she had seen Dracule Mihawk, a man with that royal cursed blood and a skill with the sword that shamed gods, that the prophecy would come true. The monster had quickly entrapped her child’s heart and started the end of the world without even noticing it. She had thought she had eradicated Mihawk's lineage after she had killed him. She had thought she had ended the prophecy and secured her children’s future.

But apparently some people in the Sword-master’s family had escaped, changed their name, and become the Trafalgar.

The second time she had tried to eradicate them it had also gone wrong, as if the universe wanted her to fail, and her children to disappear from existence. Another man of cursed blood -Trafalgar Law, a younger and more trashed copy of his ancestor- had finally entered their world and started it all again. A war like those of old times where the continents had disappeared and life had become deadly except for an island. A family tragedy. The end.

The were all going to die.

_“The angered Queen will rise in a fight._

_The realms will cry. Blood will cover the land.”_

The attack of her beloved children crushed into her with a combined force that left her breathless. There was nothing she could do as the hateful feelings of her children smashed into her mind making her scream in fear. Power, so much power, there was to much of it filling her that she began to rip at the edges, her body spasming while trying to control it all.

On the ground, below the ocean of water now surrounding her and thrashing at her, among the currents filled with strange creatures and the fury of her son, lay the bodies of her other children. Dead. Bloodied. Ripped away from life, _by her own hands._

She screamed again. Feelings suddenly filling her soul, her mind, her memories. So many. Hate and rage and a profound and agonizing loss. Guilt, fear and a breaking pain.

The wind snatched her from the sea to rip at her body like sharp blades digging into her immortal flesh, lightning struck her body burning her skin, rain poured over her, acid and melting her hair and clothes before reaching her bloodied skin. Robin cried in sadness, the powers, the emotions, the world now breaking under the battle, rendering her unable to do anything but gasp.

_"But it will be to late, and the gods_

_they shall fall."_

The power overwhelmed her as she was unable to contain it all. Her mind broke in horror as the guilt finally took hold of her. _She had killed her children_ , she realized in fear of what she had become, _she had made them hate her_. But it was too late. It was to late for regret, for forgiveness. It was too late for them all.

Her physical form disappeared under the forces trying to destroy her.

In a second, she ceased to exist.

In a second, the raging battle stopped and the world shivered at what was left.

 

...oOo...

 

Death had died.

The power she had always contained and kept under control despite her madness came free, and, as a sickness, it spread over every corner of the realms doing the only thing it knew how to do.

It took, stole and killed.

 _And killed and killed and killed and killed and killed_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, THANKS TO MY BETA, who corrected this while sick and on vacations. Love you babe, have lot's of fun and procrastinate.. Secondly, I apologize, I'm not very good at this profecy-poetry thing, I don't think I would use it again. I should probably have to simplify my fics from now on, go back to simpler times and all that...like with Tumblr. 
> 
> In any case, thanks a lot for reading as always. Leave comments despite...the drama (Oups, I did it again~), and be ready for the last two chapters of this story, this is about to end.


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